Nurture.
As I shared this morning, nature has basically destroyed my self-identified career, blinding me, causing me to miss surfing’s only true paradigm shift of the last twenty years, Kelly Slater’s Surf Ranch be damned.
Jonah Hill taking his rightful place as our standard bearer.
A new era of thoughtfulness and peace.
Dumb nature, and I cannot be consoled nor comforted though did find a small measure of peace reading a story about an 18-year-old New Zealander fisherperson who reeled a Great White to himself with a small fisherpole meant for non-apex vegetarians and very near the site of a recent fatal hit.
Tim Fairhurst of Te Awamutu and some friends were there, enjoying whatever season it is in New Zealand, currently, when they felt a large tug.
“We just had a snapper frame out and it wasn’t even that long, probably half an hour of being there. It was a cool experience that’s for sure. We hooked it up and thought it was a bit more power than a normal bronze whaler. It came up on the surface and nearly jumped but we still didn’t have a real good look at it. It probably took about 400m of line on the first run. It was a pretty good fight for the size of the shark, it’s a pretty amazing animal all right.”
They eventually won, reeled it to the boat then took it to shore for pictures and whatnot before setting it loose all extra angry, filled with a lust for vengeance.
“We reported the catch to the Department of Conservation and the guy there said within a minimum of an hour they start changing colour depending on what terrain they’re over.” Tim added. “If they’re over a reef or deep blue water they’ll be a dark colour but if they’re in sand and shallow they’ll be lighter. You get a lot of confusion over the two sharks but that was definitely a great white. It has completely different eyes and the tail and dorsal fin are a lot thicker for the size of the animal.”
Nature. Am I right?
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A regular catch in that harbour.
What has never been spoken about here or in any format was how the swimmer was killed on the ocean facing beach near there recently.
The shark circled a person 100 metres+ offshore for a minute or more and when the lifesavers boat got to about 10m away the shark attacked the victim at full force in front of the lifesavers.
The shark was obviously checking out it’s meal and then when aware of a potential challenger (the approaching boat) it made its fatal hit.
That is the way predators (especially sharks in that area) work…
Shark was just flexing
I grew up at the Mount, was always in the water and eventually lifeguarded there. Have never seen a shark. The harbour always had a sharky rep, but never the ocean beaches. Bronzies and maybe the odd Mako though. We never even thought about Great Whites being anywhere north of Dunedin.
Perhaps GW shark wrestling could be included into WSL’s one day finals format? I think people would pay to watch Toledo wrestle a Great white. Tim could rev the sharks up a little before a heat.
I’m not sure he’s got a license for that shaka.
Fuck me. I get excited when I catch a 28cm flatty. Grab the cunt at either end and stretch him out to 30cm so I’m all legit with the fisheries. Good for an entree.
What technique do you use to stretch them, do you hold the tail with your hands and suck with your mouth or you got a torture rack set up on the dingy?
Willem stretches em out from 280cm to 300cm.
I was looking forward to this next shark article of yours, Chas, the way I look forward to getting my teeth cleaned.
I actually fucking love getting my teeth cleaned. Twice a year. If you go in for the little things it prevents major jobs.
I feel that way about my colonoscopies, tbh.
Hahahaha. Yeah brother!
Amen