26 replies to this topic

[5 weight]

We might have to start wading with guns! there was a confimed Great White shark attack on the cape.
If you see seals acting weird in your area....run like hell!

[PFFlyer]

1st one to turn and burn for sand is a wiennie!!

[TwoLightsKid]

I was wading flats last night in about 3' of water when I saw something big sticking up out of the water in the dark about 50' in front of me where I had never seen anything before. I had a very nervous moment until I realized it was just a tree that was stuck on the sandbar and half buried in the sand.

[Aldo]

If you are worried about sharks, by all means DO NOT, under any circimstances, drive in an automobile to or from your fishing destination. You are many thousands of times more likely to die or be maimed in your car than in the jaws of a shark.

[MarshFellow]

I acknowledge the mathematical probabilities, but I'd be interested to see how that calculation changes when you narrow the field down to those who actually spend significant amounts of time bodily in shark habitat. The vast majority of people in the general population will never set foot in the ocean, and that has to skew the numbers.

Fortunately wading anglers, unlike body surfers, don't present a seal-like profile. The fisherman who should be most worried is the guy I saw spin-casting from a stand-up paddle board at Pine Point recently. Truth be told, there was something about that dude that made me secretly wish that some sort of calamity would befall him...

[Mainiac]

Maybe not seals, but some of us do a hell of a walrus immitation.

[Aldo]

MarshFellow, I was intrigued by your post, so I did a little research and calculating. In 2009 (the last year I could find National Highway Safety Traffic Administration accident data), there were 1,517,000 accidents involving bodily injuries and 30,800 involving fatalities. The US population that year was 305 million. For the sake of argument, let's say that every one of those people rode in an automobile, even though there are probably some who didn't because they were shut ins, only took the train or subway, etc. Let's also say that each of those accidents reported by the NHSTA involved only one single injury or one single death, even though this gives us casualty figures that are understated, becuase many of those accidents certainly resulted in death or injury to more than one person. This would mean that your odds of being injured in an auto accident that year were 1 in 201, and your odds of dying 1 in 9,902. In reality, the odds were almost certainly significantly lower, but let's work with these figures for now.

That same year, there were 28 shark attacks in US waters, one of which involved an unconfirmed fatality. (An initial autopsy concluded shark bites, but a second autopsy indicated drowning as the cause of death.) For the sake of our analysis, I will consider it a fatality. As for those who spend "significant amounts of time bodily in shark habitat," I don't have any firm numbers, but let's posit that only 0.1% of the American people (or a mere 305,000 persons) went swimming, surfing, fishing, etc. at least a few times from Cape Cod to Corpus Christy or San Francisco to San Diego in 2009. Their odds of being injured by a shark were 1 in 11,296. Their odds of being killed by a shark were 1 in 305,000.

Now, let's put the numbers side by side. Auto injuries 1 in 201 vs shark injuries at 1 in 11,296. This means that you are 56 times more likely to be injured in your car than in the jaws of a shark. Auto fatalities 1 in 9,902 vs shark fatalities at 1 in 305,000. You are 31 times more likely to be killed in your car than in the surf by a shark.

It's not quite as lopsided as I thought, but it's still overwhelmingly clear that you have much, much more to fear from Herbie the Love Bug than you do from Jaws.

[jcoops]

Nice Aldo. Of course if we wanted to get really wild with numbers, we could get species specific for wading, or city specific with regards to driving. The would, for instance equate driving in Massachussetts (Mass drivers...apologies to those on board, of course ) vs swimming in Florida (bull sharks).

In that case, I would offer that "wading in Maine" would be equivalent to driving in a North Dakota and my best guess at the odds of attack would be .00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000125%.

Now Monomoy...hmmm, I might bring a step ladder and a 14wgt.

[Aldo]

.....and for a slightly less dry take on things, this from Debbie Salamone at the Pew Research Center:

On average, there are about 65 shark attacks worldwide each year; a handful are fatal. You are more likely to be killed by a dog, snake or in a car collision with a deer. You’re also 30 times more likely to be killed by lightning and three times more likely to drown at the beach than die from a shark attack, according to the University of Florida's International Shark Attack File.

Even digging a sand hole is more dangerous. The New England Journal of Medicine reported that from 1990 to 2006, 16 people died by digging until the sand collapsed and smothered them. ISAF counted a dozen U.S. shark deaths in the same period.

Clearly, you’d be safer in the water, with the sharks.

Still not convinced? Consider another ISAF statistic: In one year in the U.S., sharks injured just 13 people while nearly 200,000 were hurt in accidents involving ladders, toilets and chainsaws.

And in an older, but memorable study by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, researchers tracked vending machine deaths from 1977 to 1995. Thirty-seven people were killed when they toppled a vending machine to get a reluctant quarter or cola -- an average of about two per year, or twice the number killed by sharks in the US. Just when you thought it was safe to get a Dr. Pepper...

[aljack]

This was the first confirmed shark attack in decades in Mass waters. It was a 8' or 9'er; and they consider the swimmer to be very lucky to have survived it. There was an 18'er spotted last Friday or Saturday.... time for a "bigger boat". I mentioned about another Peter Benchley novel in the making a few weeks back and the town of Chattham is playing right along.

As the seal population continues to grow and the great white's appetite for them grows along with it, there surely will be more incidents with folks in the water. But for now, you're more likely to die from an infected mosquito with the EEE virus than from any creature in the sea. Those have been discovered just recently in that area of the Cape.

[MarshFellow]

Thanks for finding/crunching the numbers! When I head out for the incoming tomorrow AM I'll be sure to put on the bug spray and buckle my seatbelt.

[5 weight]

The guy that was bitten, told his wife as he headed out the door, "Don't worry honey, I will wear my seatbelt."

[tls512]

Thanks for finding/crunching the numbers! When I head out for the incoming tomorrow AM I'll be sure to put on the bug spray and buckle my seatbelt.

MarshFellow was attacked by schoolies this morning.

He had to defend himself with his 9wt.

It was a horrible scene...

[MarshFellow]

MarshFellow was attacked by schoolies this morning.

He had to defend himself with his 9wt.

It was a horrible scene...

Yes, I'm emotionally scarred and have a sore arm. To borrow from the phrasing of the biologist quoted in the great white article, those wounds "are not inconsistent" with schoolie bites. Sleepless nights ahead.......

[blackghost]

I heard a roumor that Mal was tying up some "SEAL" imitations. ................ ............

[Mainiac]

Come on down "bait boy" and I'll run a shark hook through your a** and fling you out.

[flychucker]

Ah ha ha ha ha ha. Good one, Mal !!!!!

[blackghost]

Ah ha ha ha ha ha. Good one, Mal !!!!!

Come on down "bait boy" and I'll run a shark hook through your a** and fling you out.

Mal, tie an old pair of Quinn's waders to a shark hook and you'll have a good harbor seal imitation. ............Quinn

[notquiteflyfishing]

speaking of sharks on the cape... I was at that beach 3 days before that picture was taken. (nauset beach, july 6th)

[Aldo]

The folks from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute said that this photo was most likely of a basking shark, a harmless plankton feeder. Still, if I had been in that kayak, I probably could have set a new Olympic record or some kind...