Associated Press Release, May 6th 2002

A rare form of Shark, the Lamna Ditropis, commonlly known as the Salmon Shark was caught by a fisherman on the Columbia River Sunday. The Salmon Shark is a common but relativley unknown cousin of the White Shark. The average weight is 400lbs, and length is 6 to 7 feet, although species have been reported to reach up to 1000lbs and 12 feet long. It lives in the North Pacific and feeds heavily on the large populations of Salmon found there.

The fisherman, Angus Biafra of Vancouver, was fishing in the Columbia River near Longview Washington. After returning to the launch to have his very unusual catch verified he said "I had just hooked a real nice Springer and was playing him all good like, then all of the sudden it seemed Willy the Whale came up and snatched my fish. There was a huge splash and all the sudden my line started screaming off the reel." After a five hour fight the angler was able to bring the 7 foot 3 inch 554lb shark to the boat. "I thought I had the mother of all Sturgeon on for about the first two hours."

This is the first time that a Salmon Shark has been reported in fresh water, they are usually found only in the ocean. Although a cousin of the Great White Shark, a known Man Eater, the Salmon Shark had yet to be blamed for attacking humans. After removing the contents of the fishes stomach State Fish and Game biologist found several strange items, one was a hub cap from a 1971 Volkswagon Bug, the other was a rubber hip wading boot. The authorities would not speculate to the fact that this may have come from an human.

When asked what he was going to do with his unusual trophy Mr. Biafra said "What you think I'm going to do with it you dumass this was all just a JOKE!"

anyone else see that show last night on the Discovery Channel?

Was it really a joke, no I did not watch it last night. I have heared of Salmon sharks but only around the costal waters of Alaska and definitely not in fresh water.

hey trailrat what show was it called?

The show was 'Blue Planet: seas of life' and the spot on the salmon shark was pretty freaky.
I came from the generation that was pretty impressionable when Jaws came out and the fact that there's a relative of the great white here in the PNW saltwater really got my attention.
Six-gills and dogfish are one thing, salmon sharks are a whole 'nother .

Their an outfit in seward called Saltwater Safari that chases Salmon Shark. http://www.saltwatersafari.com/ I went with them one time for halibut and on the way out we were watching some videos of their Salmon Shark Hunts. What they do is take a whole Salmon and put a giant arse hook through it and rig it so the salmon spins like a herring. They then put their 65 foot boat in gear and troll this Salmon on the surface. it didn't take long and you could see a shark fin around the Salmon. Finally the Shark grabs on to the Salmon and the guy whom is sitting in the battle positiuon all tied in yells hit it when he thinks the shark has a good hold. The skipper then drops the hammer setting the hook with the boat. It looks like a fun battle and ends with a shotgun blast. Apperantly Salmon shark is really good eating. Probably has something to do with what their diet consists of.

Heres all you need to know about the Salmon Shark

http://www.reefquest.com/lamnoid_profiles/l_ditropis.htm

I saw the same show. They seem to be pretty aggresive and do look alot like a smaller, darker great white.

did any of you see that segment on shark week a few years back on discovery where a 20 ft+ great white got wrapped up in a salmon net inside grays harbor. not even kidding. I'll do a search on the net to see if anything comes up. Ben

Here's one we got a few years back fishing for halibut out of Ninilchik ... makes me want to think twice about going swimming ... not that you'd really want to in Cook Inlet

Nice, Bob. That fish has still got it's adipose fin, ya dork.

Dave Jackson

LOL

You forgot to ask what type of hook they caught it on!

Speaking of shark stories...

My dad knew a native american fisherman (out of some small town on the southern WA coast) that saw a great white actually chase a seal onto the beach. The fish purposely beached itself lunging for the seal!
He pulled out a rifle and shot the thing.
It was over 21ft long. Apparently they used to have a pic (kinda like the one above, but BIGGER) posted on the door of the local tavern.

Keep in mind that in the original Jaws movie, that shark was supposed to be a 20 ft great white...

PP

I would love to go fishing for shark some day. I heard they are relatively easy to catch and put up a great fight. Only bad part is releasing the toothy critters. Many times the captains want there hooks back because each hook I believe runs around $10. If you live in Washington I guess the closest place to fish for some decent size sharks would be in California, unless someone knows different.

Lead Thrower,

If you can find somebody to take you, you should be able to find sharks off the coast up here. Shark attacks on surfers on the Oregon Coast are realitivy frequent. I assume the only reason they aren't common here is because of the small surfing population on the WA coast. Commercial guys would probably know more too, since as has been mentioned, in addition to eating seals (or tasting surfers which look like seals) they also eat salmon, of course seals eat salmon which means where there are salmon there are seals and the possibility of shark.

My .02

Oh man I would love to catch one

When taking the photo, do you hold them by the lip like a bass...

Leadthrower, try fishing off of west Seattle for large sharks. A guy, a couple of years ago, caught a large (10+ feet) shark off the pier there. Since then WDFW has closed the area for fishing for sharks.

KING5 news had story about large sharks off of Salty's (Alki) a week ago. They had actual underwater footage.

Rockfish.......

The Great White you refer to was caught in a Fall 1975 gillnet season at the mouth of Grays Harbor by one of the Nelsons from Tokeland. The shark was mounted and can be viewed at the Seattle Aquarium if my memory serves me. Go to the State Library and dig out one of the Sunday papers from the PI for September 1975 to view the article.

5000D

Fish'fool......

You bring up an interesting point regarding the frequency of attacks on surfers in regards to the density of surfers in Oregon verses Washington. This is indeed the case for California and Oregon but here's a few facts...

The attacks have occurred off of or near by major headland areas which are haul out areas for seals and seal lions (the primary prey species for Great Whites).

The attacks except two to my knowledge over the last 15 years in California and Oregon were Whites, the others were large Blues.

There has only been one reported attack on a surfer here in Washington off of Ocean Shores and Wayne Paulsen of WDFW can fill you in on this one. I'm not convinced it was a White and the surfer was simply scraped.

The surfing density here in Washington is primarily confined to Westhaven beach and is now denser than any place in Oregon and California on a weekend (50-100 people). It's not what I would particularly call a high hazard area for White attacks but then again the "20" footer caught by Nelson in 1975 was just inside the channel on the opposite side of the South Jetty. Perhaps it's just a matter of time huh?

Pardon my digressions but I thought you might appreciate a little insight on this matter. I'm a long time surfer here in WA and simply fish when the surf is flat or blown out (which is often the case)!

5000D

I've caught several blue sharks both off the coast at West Port and Neah Bay. Not huge, but 6-8 footers put on quite a show and scare the he** out of my fishing partner, Flubmore. Discovered the technique by accident. When fishing for salmon or bottomfish, we would always stack the empty bait trays on the swim deck and secure them with a bungee. Unbeknowst to us as the waves splashed on the stern throughout the course of the day we were creating a mini chum/scent slick. Once a shark showed up, we would just float a rigged herring or chunk of bottom fish back to it and the show would begin.

Later we actually tried to do this deliberately with excellent results using frozen bottom fish carcasses in a bucket drilled full of holes lashed to the swim deck. Had on blue that was about 10' actually bite the swim deck and the motor outdrive!

We used stainless steel 5/0 hooks and 50# wire leaders. I'd bet that circle hooks would work good too.

P.S. If you want to bring one of these critters on board check the regs and then check the ammo supply in your .38/357. Or you could lasso the tail and drag him around until he was graveyard dead or until he tore the cleat off the back of the boat. Don't ask what I did the first time, or subsequently, since I haven't checked the regs, but I did get Flubmore's boat patched up pretty good!