-----Original
Message-----
From: Rhonda R Coston [mailto:rhonda_coston@fishgame.state.ak.us]
Sent: Tuesday, September 07, 2004 9:56 AMTo: Gordon F Woods; Jeffrey P
Barnhart; Neil L Barten; Victoria M Oconnell; Robert E Johnson; Scott Kelley;
Scott A Mcpherson; Phil S Doherty; William M Davidson; David A Gordon; William
R Bergmann
Subject: shark bite
Hi, I understand there
is interest in the great white shark sighting by a charter boat operator here
in Yakutat yesterday. Here is the story as I heard it from Captain Mark
Sappington on the vessel Manifest Destiny, yesterday on the dock. It
starts the day before.
On Sunday, Mark had a
client reeling in a halibut when the line was suddenly hit by something that
hit like a freight train, then parted the 400 lb test cable leader like a
string and was gone. This was exciting, but nobody saw the culprit. They
were telling wild stories of huge Makos in California that night, joking about
big sharks they had seen, etc.
The next day on a charter
with several clients, again a client was reeling in a halibut, about a 60
lb fish, and had it up to the back of the boat when a large shark took a large
bite out of the middle of it. A photo of the bitten halibut is attached. I
did not take more than one, sorry, did not know it would be of such interest,
but it clearly shows the large bite. The bite was quite rounded and
fairly clean, despite the appearance in this photo. The shark rubbed on and
bit the swim step at the stern of the boatin the process of trying to get
to the halibut. The fisherman got the halibut aboard the vessel, taking
it out of temptations way. The shark circled the boat for a time, allowing
Mark to make a length estimate using the boat as the measuring stick. Destiny
is a 30 foot boat, and the shark swam by close enough to get an excellent
size estimate. When it's tail was at the bow, it's head was about 10 feet
from the stern. Of course the excited clients had added 2 to 4 feet
to the length with each telling of the story, but Mark estimates approximately
the shark was 20 feet in length with a huge girth.
Mark grew up in
Southern California, working in the fishing and charter industry since he was a
young teen and has experience with lots of sharks, of all species. He was
confident that this was a white shark, describing the markings, coloration,
shape etc. He can be reached at fishyy@ptialaska.net
if anybody wants to talk to him about this.
Gordie says this is
the end of his body surfing in Yakutat, something he has experienced once in 20
some years. We are sorry to hear of his retirement from the sport.
I will be thinking twice before taking up any new water sports myself.
Our skiff is 18 feet long.....
Rhonda