Huger Tiger Shark


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mate of mine runs the shark program in Qld (marginally north of the spot there - though that spot is the proverbial bee's appendage from where we go for holidays every year). the stories he tells - you would never go near a bathtub.

the annual figures released in Qld of the govt catches on line and net always show a tiger around five metres and a few others thereabouts. usually caught around noosa.

i remember seeing one with a bunch of mates from a headland on fraser island. it was a long way out at sea but you could still see it. we first thought it was a small whale - you see a lot of them from the island. it came in to a small inlet in the rocky headland. we think it was a great white but could have been a monster tiger. it went in to this inlet and had to back itself out (till then, i always thought that sharks could not do that). chillingly big. at least the size of this thing.

but the biggest i have ever seen was back in the 70s when i was little more than a kid. out on the swains reef on a fishing trip - so 100 miles from the shore on the edge of the barrier reef. cleaning fish with the deckhands and everything went quiet - which was weird because there was nothing to go quiet, but that was the impression and we all noticed it. we looked over the edge of the boat and there was a hammerhead cleaning up our scraps. it was the time Jaws had just come out. we all agreed that this fish was undoubtedly bigger than the one in the movie. well over 25 feet.

there is also a story which you can find in old fishing books - i suspect it is surely not fully accurate but i suspect that there was something to it. many many years ago on the reef, further north than cairns, there was a typical debate about how big sharks got. one fishing crew set out to catch the biggest they could. caught some large spanish mackerel to use for bait as whole fish. after a couple of days way out on the reef, picked up a monster. estimated at a bit over 20 feet. a tiger from memory. they fought it for many hours and finally had it near the boat. all on board then swear blind that a hole opened up behind the shark and it was swallowed whole. but not just that, the shark that took it, swallowed it sideways. i can believe that there are/were fish of that size we have never seen, though i don't believe the swallowed it sideways bit.

swim at your peril.

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my first impression was white but if you look at the snout, definitely tiger, i believe. they have a much more boxhead appearance while the whites are not called pointer for nothing. there are a lot more tigers around there but there are also occasional whites so that doesn't mean much.

but the guy who took the pic is a well know shark photographer. if he says tiger, it will be a tiger.

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  • 7 months later...
On 8/19/2016 at 6:00 AM, Ken Gargett said:

mate of mine runs the shark program in Qld (marginally north of the spot there - though that spot is the proverbial bee's appendage from where we go for holidays every year). the stories he tells - you would never go near a bathtub.

the annual figures released in Qld of the govt catches on line and net always show a tiger around five metres and a few others thereabouts. usually caught around noosa.

i remember seeing one with a bunch of mates from a headland on fraser island. it was a long way out at sea but you could still see it. we first thought it was a small whale - you see a lot of them from the island. it came in to a small inlet in the rocky headland. we think it was a great white but could have been a monster tiger. it went in to this inlet and had to back itself out (till then, i always thought that sharks could not do that). chillingly big. at least the size of this thing.

but the biggest i have ever seen was back in the 70s when i was little more than a kid. out on the swains reef on a fishing trip - so 100 miles from the shore on the edge of the barrier reef. cleaning fish with the deckhands and everything went quiet - which was weird because there was nothing to go quiet, but that was the impression and we all noticed it. we looked over the edge of the boat and there was a hammerhead cleaning up our scraps. it was the time Jaws had just come out. we all agreed that this fish was undoubtedly bigger than the one in the movie. well over 25 feet.

there is also a story which you can find in old fishing books - i suspect it is surely not fully accurate but i suspect that there was something to it. many many years ago on the reef, further north than cairns, there was a typical debate about how big sharks got. one fishing crew set out to catch the biggest they could. caught some large spanish mackerel to use for bait as whole fish. after a couple of days way out on the reef, picked up a monster. estimated at a bit over 20 feet. a tiger from memory. they fought it for many hours and finally had it near the boat. all on board then swear blind that a hole opened up behind the shark and it was swallowed whole. but not just that, the shark that took it, swallowed it sideways. i can believe that there are/were fish of that size we have never seen, though i don't believe the swallowed it sideways bit.

swim at your peril.

This confirms my suspicions that swimming in Oz is truly madness.  Sharks are my biggest fear.   I was in Oz in 1999. Tried to get over my fear, swimming in Rottnest Island. got two metres deep, and felt something very rough and long, move along my shins.  Needless to say, I turned into a one man jacuzzi and bolted for the shore like a foaming white, un tanned mess of British limbs and torso.  This, whilst all the time toddlers 15 metres out to sea looked on in confusion.    Humbling, confusing, scary, embarrassing. 

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1 hour ago, Ken Gargett said:

you think swimming in those cesspools of fetid, bubbling disease is safe????

Marginally safer than swimming with sharks, crocs, irukanji, blue ring octopi, effluent etc.

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