Right now, Byron Bay and its surrounds, are crawling with pissed-off Whites…
Yesterday afternoon, a ten-foot Great White had a little swim through The Pass, a soft righthand point at Byron Bay, a wave popular with kids, logs, and everyone else.
A siren sounded. The lineup emptied. The animal was herded out to sea by lifesavers where, presumably, it waited until the boat left before resuming its business.
Lovers of gore will recall when a swimmer was snatched by a Great White in waist-deep water a hundred metres down from the Pass in 2014.
Great Whites are more than a fact of life in Byron Bay and its surrounds. The sudden arrival of a cluster of aggressive Whites in the last couple of years presents the surfer with an existential question: to surf or not to surf.
Is dying in the mouth of a shark worth the few seconds of speed or tube time you might experience on a little North Coast wave?
And, so, after overwhelming evidence of Whites Gone Wild, the NSW state government dropped the first 10 of 85 SMART drum-lines ahead of the Christmas holiday break at Lennox Head, South Ballina and Evans Head.
Within two days, five Whites were caught, tagged and released alive. One ten-footer was caught at Sharpes Beach, just north of Ballina, where a surfer was hit in October.
Five Whites, two days.
Does that give you pause for thought?
More than that, it shows that being hit by a White when you surf in Byron ain’t just a theoretical notion.
It’s real.
Yeah, paddle out and you’re in the shark’s lair, don’t be a pussy etc, but at what point does the human animal fight back? Let’s imagine the population of the protected Great White triples over the next few years and surfing becomes an impossibility, a death wish?
Would that be enough to gaff a few of the sonsofbitches, not tag and release?
Or do we shelve the sleds and go skim?
(But don’t skim out too far like the wonderful Austin Keen, below!)
https://www.instagram.com/p/BN03PPsAapl/?taken-by=beach_grit&hl=en
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Wowww… that’s a sort of… localism?…
Whity localism???…
Fuck and you let the raping dolphins go free??
Cull then cull some more. Just like all the “culling” we do of the fish you eat.
Man, those aussies are such a pussies…. Just kill the sharks, FFS!
Well, James, you might want to avoid topics which regard the culling of something of which has become a nuisance to surfers. Just saying.
First swedish backpacker to get nailed on a funboard at the Pass and they’ll install Vic Hislop as mayor by nightfall.
2 more sharks tagged this afternoon at Sharpes.
3.5m and 3m Tiger sharks. Looks like there all in now, bulls,whites and tigers, hooray!
Odds are pretty good now to be attacked by a tagged shark.
$100 says in 2 years time all the researchers will come out and say ” what weve found is they travel great distances” like we didnt know that.
Big fin popped up at Northwall yesterday.
Agree with Shark Week, gotta start dropping a few now when caught on drum lines. Kill them, sink them to the bottom and see if others get the message to stay away as some marine experts say happens.
just surf a big 9’6″. when’s the last time a logger was attacked? 1952? it’s always you shortboarders cuz you look like delicious little seals and turtles with your wee half-submerged arms and legs flailing around like tasty fins. meanwhile a giant longboard probably looks like some strange, alien, and deadly macro-predator to a shark. even if he does decide to fight your board for apex predator status you can simply pull your legs up high and dry and let him get a big mouthful of volan. just bring a little solarez to throw on the bite marks afterwards
I’ve said it before, I’ll say it again – we are going completely against the NATURAL order of this planet and the animal kingdom if we keep fuckin tagging these Whites instead of killing them in order to protect our own species (when they are rationally considered a threat to humans living our daily lives in our miniscule slither of coastline/ocean that we swim/surf in on a daily basis). Anyone who thinks otherwise is either ignorant or just a plain sociopath with no empathy for his fellow humans.
maybe you should google SOPHISTRY?
I googled it but because of the capital letters all I got was the acronym for this activist network of shark attack survivors and their families… Surfers Openly Perishing from Historical Incidents of Shark Tragedies are Rightly Yieldless
Yep you spot on 74 tagged sharks now is fucking too many!!
They are obviously not endangered seems like pretty healthy pop to me.
Now not enough too eat, so eating surfers pretty fucking simple maths and we probably overfished the whole coast!!
Maybe should tag em put them in a cage – cage fight the shit out of it winner goes free?? Or dies as well??
try 6 Dell.
NSWDPI advise 2.7m male White shark tagged and released off Flat Rock/Angels Beach, Ballina using SMART Drumline technology. Shark #74
C’mon up, the waters fine. I’ll shout you a post surf hibiscus kombucha in Byron.
I am now actually getting interested in coming for a surf up your way , just to make up for the waves , and to really get the adrenalin pumping , will paddle out with a Zip lock baggie with blood in it , so if you see bloke paddling around Lennox in the next couple of weeks ,with a red baggie in his mouth , c’mon and wa sup Brut!
I’d recommend stinging or shocking those muther f-ers so they know surf spots are off-limits. If that doesn’t work, start water-boarding (or air-boarding) those assholes so they know not to fu$& around with Surf Nation.
And that also goes for Kooks and all their iterations.
how the jimmy do you sting a white shark? We’re not all bees ya know.
…I attach this photo for no other than reason than to display the Great White ferocity of Strider’s formidable tits. https://uploads.disquscdn.c…
damn that nipple , the Gay community goes wild !!!
Centipede venom? On long sticks with many prongs? Like an underwater phalanx? The great whites will spread the word about the sea of terror (the pass) . . .
“The venom!” they will whisper to each other, “the venom!”
Oh FFS , crawling with pissed off whites ?? Sounds like someone who votes for One Nation , or ol’ Trumpy!
They are just small juveniles having fun , shark Hysteria creates less people in the water , and yes you are probably right in the tripling of GWS numbers over the next few years, which will sort out who really wants to surf and make every surf an adrenalin charged one!
It took me a little while but how good is the abbreviation FFS. Is this of your own making?
Friendly father syndrome, For fucks sake , and yeah!!
Oh you are very, very good. I would count that as a victory!
Fins For Soup?