Great white sharks Chatham

[machaca]

This Thursday at 7pm at west Falmouth ma library dr Greg skomal and captains billy and nick Chaprales from stickboat EZ Duzit will be hosting a talk and discussion about the great white sharks off Chatham and the tagging program they are involved in It is free but due to limited space please call to reserve a seat 508-548-4709. I love the great whites because they eat the seals.......

 

[CEShawn]

Ive known Greg for years from doing the BBGFC seminars and tournaments that they used to have... I've always wanted to hit one of these up as I heard they were good... Back when I had the big boat I was lining up to do some work with him, wish the timeline worked out...

 

[machaca]

It should be great. They will be showing the movie they made forthe discovery channel called jaws comes home. And talking about the archival tags they have put in the sharks seeing them wintering down off Jacksonville pretty close to where a lot of the tagged bluefin have been showing in the winter. They also have great plane footage ofthesharks from spotter pilot George Breen.

 

[starrfish]

wish i had known earlier, it should be very informative, great people. greg is fun to work with, when we tagged that GW for the show he was STOKED ! we all were. wicked cool to have something that large just cruizing around the boat for 6 hours, and knowing she is the queen of the ocean..

 

[machaca]

Very cool, most of the tagging is done right off the beach in 10 ft of wAter. Some of the Ariel shots are great 100 seals sitting on the beach and a 2000 lb great white 50 ft off the beach watching them waiting for one to go for a swim.. Wouldn't catch me swimming off an outer cape beach....

 

[MouseTrap]

Shallow water Great Whites on Cape Cod

 

[Bassin]

I saw one last summer.. showed up 20 ft off our bow right after we bled a tuna 3 miles off nauset. Pretty amazing seeing them in the wild.

 

[machaca]

Starfish- you forgot to mention the part where the 18ft white got stuck on top of the dive cage w two guys in it- pretty crazy....

 

[starrfish]

lol.. that was pretty cool..like other shows, lots of drama, great camera footage..
the cage was suspended about 4' under, she rubbed her belly when she swam over the top amd decided to turn around..i guess like all other 3200 lb critters, they do what they want..
my concern was her tail when she turned.. could you even imagine getting swatted by that? the bottom of her dorsal did pop a bar outa the top of the cage though..

 

[machaca]

Looked a little more comfortable on deck than in that cage....

 

[Montauk Rocket]

Incredible stuff. Is
More info or the movie available online anywhere?

 

[machaca]

The tagging team has a web site capecodsharkhunters.com and the movie jaws comes home was done with discovery channel so probably canbefound through their web site

 

[starrfish]

chatham great white shark on top of shark cage - YouTube
here is the video we took, inside the cage is greg skomal (MA DMF, and a nat geo film guru)
and its also on comcast on demand, search 'shark week'

 

[JoFishes]

In My Opinion.....Great Whites are awesome and unique animals.
I have caught...indirectly....33 individuals, not trying to catch a one, and have tagged many.
Some have been in excess of 1000#.
I have never boated one that was alive to release.
Powerful and beautiful critters! Live and let live......
Great photos and footage there.....Jo

 

[machaca]

Jofishes- what were you targeting when you got those white and what type of gear? I would think whites would destroy alot of gear....Longline baited with seals? The tags have approximated the wintering area for these sharks up here to be southern Georgia northern Florida on the edge of the gulf stream

 

[CaptAlex]

... the Whites spend the winters in the same area (FL & GA coast, east side of the Stream) as where Right Whales have their calves ... the "right" whale to kill 'cause they float when dead, so I wouldn't be surprised if over the course of thousands of years White Sharks figured that out, cause a dead right whale calf would float not sink, allowing the sharks to make the most of a kill ...
(I ran this theory by Skomal and he likes it)

 

[JoFishes]

Jofishes- what were you targeting when you got those white and what type of gear? I would think whites would destroy alot of gear....Longline baited with seals? The tags have approximated the wintering area for these sharks up here to be southern Georgia northern Florida on the edge of the gulf stream

We were targeting sandbar and blacktip sharks using chunks of atlantic sharpnose sharks for bait, on the west side of the stream and pretty close to shore at times (3 mi).
16/0 mustad circle hooks crimped to 6' 900# leaders, 100 hooks per mile with sash weights every 10-15 hooks. 900# mainline, 3-6 miles would be a normal set. Some of them tore up some gear but not as bad as a big tiger or Greater hammerhead.
Typically set at night and hauled back during the day as close as 3 miles from the beach. No LL gear allowed in state waters.
They would show up here from jan-march. Biggest one I've seen was est.15' long and FAT. That was during a severe thermocline event we had here in july 2004. They also go into the GOM according to a few of my friends over there. FWIW, Jo

 

[JoFishes]

... the Whites spend the winters in the same area (FL & GA coast, east side of the Stream) as where Right Whales have their calves ... the "right" whale to kill 'cause they float when dead, so I wouldn't be surprised if over the course of thousands of years White Sharks figured that out, cause a dead right whale calf would float not sink, allowing the sharks to make the most of a kill ...
(I ran this theory by Skomal and he likes it)

Some of the right whales pass so close to the shore here that you could probably hit em with a baseball if you have a good arm. Saw quite a few pods last winter while fishin on the 3 mi. line and inside on the way home.
We even had a few humpbacks putting on a breaching show on a few occasions.

 

[machaca]

Yep a few buddies of mine have gotten them up in the Gom tuna fishing, me I just seem to get my leaders chewed up by the blue dogs....a few of the scientists think the great whites are also giving birth in the winter area down south. A dragger a few years back caught a baby white in vineyard sound flunking so who knows....