Shark Alert
Source: Magnet
South Pambula game fisher Allen Roberts and two mates were lucky not to be knocked from their boat when a huge shark attacked it at Mowarry, south of Eden on Saturday morning.
The six metre Quintrex “Seaducer” was almost tipped over and a wall of water washed into the boat when the shark rose from the depths to engulf the boats yellow sea anchor, floating just below the surface on the boat’s port side.
“He’s just grabbed it and run at the boat,” Mr Roberts said.
“He made a two foot wave that came over the side of the boat.”
The shark, believed to be the great white spotted at the Kiah River mouth several weeks ago, left clear tooth marks measuring almost five centimetres in the sea anchor material.
The bite mark it left on the curved surface measured more than half a metre (53 centimetres) across.
A Sydney shark specialist with 20 years experience estimated the size of the shark to be 4.5 to five metres long and up to 20 years old.
He said sightings were generally associated with an intrusion of cold water with a temperature of about 17 or 18 degrees, bordered by warmer water of about 20 degrees.
The attack ended for Mr Roberts and his two companions, Jason Savage and Rob Lindsay, when the shark realised it’s mistake, let go of the anchor and disappeared.
“Just after he hit the anchor a school of Kingies (king fish) came up under the boat. I think they were trying to hide,” Mr Roberts said.
The shark was first thought to be a humpback whale as one had breached near one of the half a dozen boats in the area half an hour before the attack.
“I’m used to game fishing anyway so fish like that don’t bother me,” he said.
What did worry him though was the fact that an abalone diver was in the water only half a kilometre away.
Mr Roberts has been game fishing local waters for many years and includes among his trophies a 4.3 metre hammerhead shark, a 3.7 metre bronze whaler and a 120 kilogram striped marlin.
The walls of his upholstery shed are covered with photographs and mounted fish and he also makes dive vests for abalone divers in Eden and Mallacoota.
He said he had come close to only one great white shark before they were protected 10 years ago and unsuccessfully attempted to catch it.
He said that in recent years he had heard of sightings of a big shark between Gabo Island and Eden.
The great white’s diet includes mammals, large fish, stings rays and possibly smaller sharks.
Eden’s seal population could also be a source of food for the creature.
Workers aboard an Eden Mussels boat witnessed a possible attack while steaming from Snug Cove to the mussel farm in waters near Keiths Pinch last Friday.
Employee Tony Bell said they saw a seal “fly up out of the water onto one of our bubbles.”
The black flotation devices hold 200 litres of air and are about 90 centimetres wide by about 1.5 metres long.
“It was definitely getting away from something and it was looking in the water,” he said.
Keiths Pinch lies just north of Quarantine Bay and is also in close proximity to Cocora Beach and the Cannery Beach.
The Sydney specialist said it was difficult to say if the population of great white sharks was on the increase after the species became legally protected about 10 years ago.
He said annual fluctuations and place specific events made estimates difficult but that there was some indication that they were about in greater numbers.
The species can travel vast distances with tagged two-metre juveniles tracked heading from Australia to New Zealand or Africa and back.
The species remains protected.