Tag: Salmon

Shark, swimmers unknowingly create spooky image

Ghost or the Grinch? These are just two observations regarding an image captured via drone Friday off Australia’s Bondi Beach, just in time for Halloween.

Ghost or Grinch?

These are just two observations regarding an image captured Friday via drone off Australia’s Bondi Beach, just in time for Halloween.

The image, captured by Drone Shark App and shared via social media, shows two swimmers and what’s described as a grey nurse shark swimming through an immense school of salmon just yards from shore.

The swimmers parted the salmon in the form of two circular clearings, which appear as eyes in a ghost-like face, while the shark cleared an area that might be perceived as a mouth.

The salmon school was so dense that the swimmers and shark seemed oblivious to each other’s presence. The spooky image, therefore, was purely coincidental.

“Do you see what I see?” Drone Shark App wrote on Facebook. “Tell me what you see?”

“Ooooh, it looks like a ghost. Just in time for Halloween,” one commenter wrote.

“Grinch,” stated another.

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But some comments pertained purely to the subjects.

“I see two people who want to be eaten,” a follower chimed in.

Reads another comment: “More reasons to fearfully admire the beautiful ocean and only go in a few feet from shore.”

Schooling salmon are common off Sydney at this time of year, and the fish attract both swimmers and apex predators.

In another Facebook post, Drone Shark App shared the video footage from which the accompanying screen shot was pulled. It shows several swimmers near or within the salmon school, oblivious to two nurse sharks also swimming through the school.

The drone operator, when contacted by For The Win Outdoors, asked only to be identified as Drone Shark App. The group’s social media pages are filled with photos of video clips showing sea life off Australia’s beaches.

Big salmon catch became an ‘Old Man and the Sea’ moment

While fishing Lake Michigan, Dennis Stein caught a salmon and said he found himself relating on many levels to Ernest Hemingway’s novel.

While fishing Lake Michigan, Dennis Stein landed a 33-pound chinook salmon—one twice the size of his personal best and only four pounds shy of the Illinois record—and he did so while fishing solo and not using a net.

“I found myself relating to ‘The Old Man and the Sea’ on many levels,” Stein told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors, referring to Ernest Hemingway’s novel.

With friends unable to accompany him, Stein ventured out alone onto Lake Michigan from North Point Marina near the Wisconsin-Illinois border. But as he was fishing, his boat started taking on water so he decided to head in.

“When I got back and trailered the boat, I pulled the plug and the boat drained for more than half an hour with water pouring like a firehose from the drain plug hole,” he told For the Win Outdoors.

He fixed the leak and decided to test it out to make sure. So he returned to the fishing grounds where he put out three lines and hooked up a few minutes later, around 4:30 in the afternoon.

“It was not a particularly hard strike; I happened to see the rod pop free [from the downrigger] and straighten, then bend downward and the drag start running on a slow buzz,” he said. “I grabbed the rod and slowly pulled back to ensure there was a fish. There was a solid pull and I was sure I had a fish.”

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While fighting the fish, he got bit on a second rod. At one point he put the first rod into a rod holder and attended to the other before putting that back and returning to the first rod. It was a prudent move; the second fish was eventually lost.

Forty minutes into the battle and with his wrists burning, Stein could see the fish 20 feet behind the boat.

“I got him a little closer as I balanced the net where I thought I could get him,” he said. “I tried to see if I could scoop him from the back but noted he could shoot forward at an alarming rate. There was no way to get the net in front of him because I had no strength left to keep the rod up. I decided my best shot was to keep him alongside the boat and get a hand inside his gill.”

So he carefully reached down, touched the fish and discovered it “was too tired to care.”

“I quickly slipped two fingers under his gill plate and with a quick motion I was able to pull him up and over the side,” he explained. “I just sat for 10 minutes unable to move,  then I had to unhook the fish, and though he was bigger than my livewell I was able to curl him in.”

For comparison, his previous best was a 16-pounder. Incidentally, the state record for a Chinook salmon is 37 pounds caught by Marge Landeen on Aug. 7, 1976, also in Lake County waters.

With the fish securely in the livewell, Stein checked to make sure he wasn’t taking on water and headed in. Ten minutes later the boat alarm went off. Thinking he was low on oil, he added some. But the alarm kept “chiming.” Turns out, he was low on fuel. He had gone below 10 gallons and set off the alarm.

“This is where my ‘Old Man and the Sea’ reference hit me,” Stein explained. “I was an hour out and I was burning 10 gallons an hour.”

Fortunately, he managed to make it back without running out of fuel, otherwise his fish story would’ve added yet another unwelcome element.

Photo courtesy of Dennis Stein.

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