Shark Bait

Shark Attack

True Adventure from Kurt Bickel

ACTIVITY: Spearfishing
LOCATION: The incident took place near Midnight Lump in the Gulf of Mexico. 28o38.122’N, 89o33.249’W

NAME: Kurt Bickel
DESCRIPTION: A 39-year-old male from Reno, Nevada. He is 5’9″, weighs 165 pounds, was wearing a green and black wetsuit and long black free diving fins and carrying a blue camo speargun. He is an experienced diver and the editor of Spearfishing Magazine.

BACKGROUND
WEATHER: It was slightly overcast and the air temperature was about 75oF.
SEA CONDITIONS: There were three to six foot wind waves, sea temperature was about 70oF, and the water visibility was 30 feet vertically, 300 feet horizontally.
ENVIRONMENT: Located about 38 miles off Venice, Louisiana (roughly an hour southeast of New Orleans), Midnight Lump is an underwater peak rising about 600 feet on the northern rim of the Desoto Canyon. The canyon plunges more than 1,000 fathoms and is one of the deepest areas in the Gulf. The lump crests about 187 feet from the surface, spans a mile across. Species targeted at Midnight Lump include yellowfin and blackfin tuna, wahoo, mackerel, red snapper, amberjack and rainbow runners. Large sharks are attracted to baitfish battered by strong Gulf currents slamming into, around and over Midnight Lump This incident took place over a mud bottom, about an eighth of a mile from a deep water channel.
DISTANCE FROM SHORE: 45 miles
DEPTH OF WATER AT INCIDENT SITE: 200 feet, but the incident took place between the surface and a depth of seven feet.
TIME: 16h00 [4 pm]

NARRATIVE: Kurt Brickel had been in the water about 20 minutes and had not speared any fish when the incident took place. He describes the encounter:

I’m out in the bluewater, hanging onto a small rope that’s strung through an inflatable buoy, which is attached by 70 or so feet of rope to our anchored boat. I’m alone out here. My partner Eddie [Mayes], who was out on the line without his gun, has swallowed some seawater in the swells and is back on the boat, discharging the result from his stomach. I look up the line and see Roberto Reyes getting in the water.

The current is pulling strong, maybe three to four knots. Not strong enough to preclude a swim back to the boat, but strong enough that my speargun is being pulled backwards, so I hold the buoy line in my right hand, and my gun in my left. I’m thinking this will allow me to quickly release and set up for a shot when one of the yellowfin comes into range. I’m facing to the port side of the buoy, scanning the area for the distinctive shape and finlets of the tuna. The visibility here is limited by a brown haze that starts at 30 feet below the surface, though above the fog I can see for several hundred feet.

Every few minutes small pieces of chum float by me. Bonita scream in and out, feeding at high speed. Several Wahoo pass close by, eyeing me with the sort of punk stare you get from street kids. Occasionally I drop off the line to try to spear a tuna but they move in and out of the haze, just out of range.

I keep up my scan and see a dime-sized shape traveling straight at me directly down current, perhaps 3 to 10 feet below the surface. I run through my mental fish catalogue. Shape and color like a wahoo, but swimming wrong, more like a tuna. A split second later the object grows larger and I see a mouth full of huge jagged teeth. I get a sickening feeling in my stomach.

When we first arrived we heard several stories of a large Mako shark that had been in the area. It had banged into one boat hard enough to knock people over, and pushed the outboards out of the water on another. The local bully, letting folks know who’s boss. There isn’t a doubt in my mind that this is the same fish, headed straight towards me.

In about three seconds the shark pulls even to me, about 15 feet to the side. I’m pulling my gun hard against the current, trying to swing it into position to defend myself. The shark turns and I let go of the float. In another second it’s right in front of me. I have the gun braced in firing position am extending, trying to aim for the shark’s snout, hoping that a sharp blow on the snout will turn it. Instead the teeth draw apart and I see the end of my gun disappear down into the beast’s mouth. The last things I remember seeing are several feet of white teeth heading towards me, less than a foot away. Elapsed time from the time I see the shark to now is four, maybe five seconds.

I push with everything I have, focusing every single ounce of strength into the handle and butt end of the gun. The sensation of the gun going down the shark’s mouth is sickeningly soft. I know I need to hit something solid or I’m in even more trouble.

I push until I feel the water start to rush around my back; I’m being shoved backwards like some insignificant piece of flotsam. The shark is ripping me from side to side…I feel something bang into me and then the gun rips out of my hands. I tumble for a few seconds underwater. My vision returns and I look up to see the buoy and line. I swim 20 feet towards the surface and grab the rope, screaming at the guys on the boat to pull me in. They just stand there, unmoving.

I scream again and they rush to the line. A second later I’m being yanked towards the boat. I go hand over hand until the rushing water is too much and I all I can do is hang on. My mask floods and I’m blind, waiting, feeling for the bump, for the pressure and tug of another attack. Without my gun I’m defenseless against something of this size.

If you want to know what fear is like, boiled down to it’s very essence, try being hung on a line like a piece of bait while you wait for several million years of predatory evolution to arrive at your doorstep.

All I can do is hope it goes after the buoy instead of me.

I try to look back and the snorkel, my lifeline for air, rips out of my mouth. I get my head up long enough to reinsert and clear my mask. I hear shouting and see Roberto on the swim step. Another few seconds and I’m there on the swim step yelling to be pulled in. Them I’m safe, on my hands and knees, trying to catch my breath, to push my heart back in my mouth.

In less than a minute it’s over.

We spent the next ten minutes watching the shark slowly drag my float around. At one point we could see him swimming below us, my gun sticking out of his mouth from just in front of the handle. It looked like a toothpick.

We untied the boat and went after the float. We managed to hook the floatline but tugging on it only made the shark try to head for the bottom. It was like pulling on a freight train. I watched him start to take my float down but stop when it was half sunk.

All we could is wait for the shark to surface.

A few minutes later Roberto hooked the line again and exclaimed, ‘You are one lucky son of a bitch!’ Up came my gun, still loaded. The slip tip had come off, and the breakaway disengaged.

INJURY: No injury

DAMAGE TO EQUIPMENT: “When we got the gun on board inspection showed several teeth marks, and some flesh on the slip tip cable,” said Brickel. “My guess is the tip came off and lodged inside the shark, keeping him from spitting out the gun.”

SPECIES INVOLVED: The incident involved a 10- to 11-foot shortfin mako shark with a mass of 700 to 800 pounds.

END

About Kurt Bickel