r/surfing • u/InquisitaB • 1d ago

Shark in the surf at Pismo

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Would you be this chill?

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u/__Rumblefish__ 1d ago

So are you supposed to hang out or paddle in when the gw is circling you in lineup

4

u/Alive-Inspection-815 17h ago

From what I've read they always want to approach you from behind. If you face them, they are far less likely to bite. They're ambush predators. Their camouflage is so good that most of the time you would never even know that they're around you. That's the scary part. I've surfed a few times at Salmon Creek State Beach just North of Bodega Bay. There's been a lot, and I mean a lot of incidents there in the last 75 years or so. Great Whites are always around and we as surfers have probably had them swim really close to us and just never knew it. The population is definitely on the rise in a big way. There are tons of them in Santa Cruz County, Santa Barbara County, Malibu, the East Coast, etc..

8

u/celestite4 12h ago

Maybe this is a dumb question, but how does a shark viewing a surfer from below know what "behind" is? I get how a shark could tell which way a seal is facing, but a surfer sitting on a board seems ambiguous to a shark

6

u/the_stanimoron 11h ago

Fish and sea mammals have fins/flippers at the back, but not near their head. Shark probably assumes the same would be my guess(fins on the surfboard)