Pack Attacked by Bronzies

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    Posted: 03 Feb 2020 at 9:25pm
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So after a wonderfull first half of January catching kingys off the bait schools in the inner B.O.I and the second half down in the B.O.P with a now deceased mate and mentor, I decided to go and have a bit more fun with em today.
Unfortunately the bait was spread and low for all of the morning but we persisted until the avo and then the bait started getting rounded up early avo with kingy marks around them. Ended up hooking three from different schools with all getting sharked. The third spectacularly on the surface by 3 and god only knows how many more visible on the surface. I've never seen them in those numbers before on the surface. And after that they stuck with the boat and unable to shake them off, even without a king on they would show up within minutes on the surface.
Managed to catch 1 bronzie and give it a good stern lesson on how bullying would not be tolerated and then called it a day.
So now unless I want to start burning more than 20l gas a day and finding new bait i'm gunna have to start a re education program for these flamin thugs.
Could well be a bit of fun especially on a double!!!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote JustAnotherSpearo Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 6:03am
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The sharks this summer are just out of control only a matter of time till a spearo becomes a statistic from it.

I'm not exactly sure what has changed but the behaviour seems different from what I've observed.

It's almost like they're getting lazy / smarter and just hanging around the areas where certain species are targetted.

Easy feed and they know it??
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote Waylander Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 7:14am
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Altho a pain, you gotta remember all science points to the following:

"Health Shark population= healthy ecosystem. "

They don't hang around where there is no food.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Speedy Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 8:16am
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I agree Terrafish - the bronzie shark population feels like it is increasing exponentially all the time... and yeah - J.A.S., rather you than me in the water with these things all teased up and hungry!
 
 
 
 
 
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Steps Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 8:57am
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Altho a pain, you gotta remember all science points to the following:

"Health Shark population= healthy ecosystem. "

I have wondered about that populist sentiment for a while now.
We protect  sharks , seals, even dolphins (saying that without meaning to get someone upset that wants to miss the principle of the following point)  .. basically top of the food chain stuff that can feed on everything 'below'
A species further down the chain therefore has less to 'choose from'
 Then we take out of the system everything from shell fish, bait fish in 'sustainable ' quantities.
 
Then wonder why more ppl get hit by sharks, attacked by seals in harbours and creeks, and more get caught up in nets heaven bid...not even considering the reason being is that those protected populations at the top increase because they can feed off the whole food chain.

If  commercial and recreational sustainability is the 'code' of the day and we protect top of the food chain species there will come a point where "sustainability" will have to also include the take from protected species.

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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote terrafish Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 9:16am
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Waylander I agree, But these sharks did not used to be here in these numbers. A few years ago you could fish all summer and very rarely get sharked, and only sometimes see the culprit. I can see the beach at Waitangi from where i'm fishin so that's how close they are now in large numbers, and from a shark that I once thought preferred to keep its distance, to now actively following boats on the surface even when not hooked up is a big behavioural change.
A lot of the popular areas(Rocky Point, Whale, Bird, and The Cape) in the bay have had problems for years now already, with them showing up earlier and leaving later. And no-one yet has come up with an effective way of getting the kingys past em.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote thebakerman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 10:24am
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What I find interesting is that I've been boat fishing for nearly 60 years. (Jeez I'm an old b.....) In the early days when we went out in summer time there were fins everywhere- sharks basking on the surface. You could sneak up on them and grab them by the tail, for a few seconds of mayhem. Despite catching literally hundreds and hundreds of fish over the years, up until about 5 years ago I had only had one fish taken by a shark who had the decency to leave me with the front half of what I estimate to be a 5lb blue cod. Now most trips I get sharks chasing and/or mauling and/or biting fish.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote OuttaHere Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 11:24am
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Very rapid learned behaviour combined with amplified selection. Boats = food sources. Sharks that follow boats get a feed, thrive, make more babies. EDIT: Combined with more pressure on food sources, you can see why sharks would opt for an easy feed. If prey biomass was at historic levels I bet there would be epic numbers of sharks but they would be happily snacking on random fish rather than looking for ones on a hook.

Probably an unpopular opinion but if a few more of them got killed when brought to the boat it would start to reverse the behaviour.

re. what Steps was saying about how we protect the top of the food chain but say stuff it to the beasties lower down, yep, documented phenomenon, it's called "charismatic megafauna" and it's basically that lots of people feel bad about harming a few big things but less bad about killing lots of small ones. Good example is people having a huge hardon for T&R of young, extremely fast growing, relatively prolific Striped Marlin but happily spiking a 40 year old Snapper and dropping it in the chilly bin.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Alan L Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 12:13pm
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In the pacific we get plagued with bronzies also - esp around summer. The area /fads get unfishable. My mate over there right now has had lots of trouble with sharks the last month or two.
I have an underwater camera I sometimes tow. Pull up to fad in boat, rig gear, drop camera - may take couple of minutes. 50% of the time the first thing on the screen - immediately after being dropped - is a shark. Until then it was just a metal boat sitting on the water. And it already had a shark under it. My take is as explained above -they have learned that easy food is close by. Wait for you to catch it then steal it. Much easier than catching their own. Learned behaviour - and I guess they pass it on to the next gen. 
Once we pulled up to a Fad, slowly moving ahead ready to drop lures - looked behind - had 3 sharks behind the transom. They would not leave. Packed up and left.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote pompey Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 12:33pm
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The sharks adapting behaviour is the same as intergenerational welfare dependency in human beings.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote TommyT Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 1:28pm
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Sharks with learned behavior.  So there must be some truth in that movie "Deep Blue Sea"

I might postpone Thursdays trip to the Kaipara thenSmile

there certainly does seem to be plenty around this year but then in my opinion this has been one of the most productive seasons for all types of fishing so it stands to reason there would be more.  Last weekend we were of Boat Harbour in the Coromandel and my mate was having a quick splash for some crays and I swear this little Bronzie was stalking him.  I saw it's fin then when he came up about 15mins later it surfaced about 10 mtrs behind him, swam around a couple of times then dived down.  quickest I've ever seen him get in the boat.  No crays either but i couldn't talk him into going back
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote FishMan Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 1:30pm
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It is a huge problem that can only get worse. The sharks are trained by repetitive behaviour. You can't get much more repetitive than charter fishing. And they are such efficient predators that easy kingfish meals give them a massive adaptive advantage. Their behaviour won't change until our behaviour does.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote pjc Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 2:00pm
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Not just Sharks looking for an easy feed.


Sperm whales have turned burglar. They have learned to follow commercial fishing boats off the coast of Alaska, and then pick huge volumes of fish from the lines. It now seems they can take about 5% of the fishermen’s annual quotas.

Theres a nice Photo in the article.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote terrafish Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 2:04pm
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Understood Craig but I don't skipper anymore so wouldn't have thought they would have been that tuned to my engine as i'm not out all the time day after day. So it may well be that any engine now is a target of investigation for them.
When first started fishing em(kingys) several+ years ago there was only a couple of us that realised they were there in such numbers. Most would turn up, catch their liveys then blast off over the horizon in search of kingys…...much to our amusement.
Then a few started to catch on and soon there were more numbers chasing them successfully, and pretty much all of them having their throats cut and bleed out over the side(Guilty as well). So yes our behaviour has undoubtably contributed to this massive rise in shark population and fierce competition amongst themselves for each hooked fish.
On a plus side however I just had a look at the igfa records and some are really achievable with a nice healthy population of fish visable on the surface and a number of lineweights ready to send out to the right class of fish.

Just gotta find my tail rope and old wiring gloves and some sucker to turn the handle for however long it takes!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote terrafish Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 2:07pm
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The bottomliners used to have problems with the orca here as well PJ. Apparently they would just wait until the gear started getting hauled and just pluckem neatly off the line
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Alan L Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 04 Feb 2020 at 6:59pm
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The learned behaviour also extends to tuna - following the Hoki boats.
It is simple adaptation to the environment they find themselves in. Least energy expended fr maximum return. They aren't stupid. Same reason gamefish follow temp/contour breaks. The baitfish hit the temp break, get groggy ....chomp.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (1) Likes(1)   Quote Wanda_Ra Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Feb 2020 at 5:23pm
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You head up to a mussel farm and leave the motor running and the snapper swarm in. Learned behaviour that is taught to the next generation of fish as well.

Thousands of recreational boats as well as charter boats each year resulting in untold numbers of kingis hauled in, and whats the first thing you do when catching a kingi or even kahawai etc ? 
 you cut its throat over the side.  
Not too much different from chumming to attract sharks really.  Not the sharks fault that they have finally caught onto a system of easy feeds.

When bleeding fish now i have a tall thin rubbish bin i stick the fishes head into and then knife it. No point actively advertising theres a free feed around.Same reason i wont berly unlees its with shellfish/ mussels.


If you think you are too small to make a difference,try sleeping with a mosquito in your tent.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote Muppet Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 06 Feb 2020 at 6:30pm
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Talk about learned behaviour the big school of snapper at Gulf Harbour were like dogs today when I fed them a pack of pilchards.
Some very nice ones in there too.
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote thebakerman Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 07 Feb 2020 at 9:43am
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I like the reasoning for shellfish berley only. Given the decimation of shellfish beds over the last 50 years and the cheapness of fresh musselsat the supermarket, guess what ....
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Post Options Post Options   Likes (0) Likes(0)   Quote FizFisho Quote  Post ReplyReply Direct Link To This Post Posted: 18 Feb 2020 at 8:35am
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The positive is, sharks are a positive sign of reef health.

The downside is pack attack.

At least we don't get their cousin the Bull Shark, now they are nasty, like piranhas but clearly the size of a Shark, just go mental over anything moving.

One of the worst spots I hate spearfishing is Tiri Island, not just because there are a lot of Bronzies, but because usually the viz is 3-4m and green, not fun when the Bronzies move in on your kingy, especially if you are holding it trying to give it an Iki.

I usually move once they move in.
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