The ocean belongs to the sharks. When you head out on a spearfishing adventure like this bro did in Brazoria County, Texas you have to know that there’s a decent chance you’ll come within close contact of a shark at some point throughout the day. As a spearfisherman you’re firing a spear through a fish and releasing all sorts of blood into the water, that in turns brings the sharks around.
This bro almost became a statistic, as last year set a world record for the most shark attacks worldwide at 98. However he was able to get away from the rabid bull sharks and their ravenous feeding frenzy, and all he lost was a few big ass chunks from the massive wahoo he shot…The same fish that nearly cost him his life.
Here’s spearfisherman Keith Love holding the wahoo that nearly cost him his life (story below):
This story comes by way of spearfisherman Keith Love’s Facebook page at Texas Bluewater Safaris:
On January 24th I was attacked by bull sharks. It was reported to the global shark attack files.
It started the day before. We Had a charter planned for the weekend. We run a company called Tuff Extreme. We specialize in Spearfishing and all kinds of extreme sports. We left Surfside to one of my favorite fishing spots the weather was cold and windy and the water was murky. The fish seemed to be gone. The customers didn’t get anything but some small fish on the rig. We decided to stay in the area and spend the night in hopes clear warmer water would move in from the south. We woke up to a flat, blue and Clearer warmer ocean. We all got ready and got in together. We got a couple of great wahoo on the boat. The Sharks starting smelling the blood and were in the area off and on. Bull, Silky, dusky, and hammerhead sharks.
I shot a wahoo and it took off racing. It went out of sight and the float started taking off so I started swimming after it. A huge bull shark was chasing the wahoo that I had just speared and the wahoo came back towards me and then was using me as a shield. The Wahoo tangled me up in the shooting line and then the the shark was able to hit me and the wahoo I was pushing off the Sharks head. The shark then got tangled in the line with me and the wahoo and was dragging me and hitting me with his tail. It eventually broke the line. Then A second shark came speeding up from below and I put my gun down to block me and the shark hit me and the gun pushing me out of the water and breaking my speargun. Then it was a cloud of blood from the wahoo and sharks hitting me and attacking the wahoo that was still In tangled with me in a frenzy as Joe Tate races the boat to me to pull me in the boat. I don’t know how they didn’t get their jaws around me because the had their jaws extended trying to bite me. The wahoo had two main bites out of him and was attached to me when joe Tate pulled me in. Joe witnessed the Sharks jumping on top of me and landing on me And the Sharks thrashing on the surface at me. I laid on the back transom for 10 min. I was in shock. I felt like it took everything out of me. I couldn’t move. Later in the day we took this pic. The bite marks don’t do the Sharks justice. They didn’t get their whole mouth around the wahoo just the very front part of their mouth. The mouths could of bit me and the wahoo in half in one bit.
I only sustained bruised ribs a cut wetsuit and a bruised tail bone. Also a broken bluewater gun. I haven’t said anything sooner for fear of scaring people off from going in the water and us spearfisherman encounter sharks all the time and have incidents with sharks stealing fish. They normally don’t mess with you if you have the fish in your hands and don’t try and come in to attack. Sharks seem to be getting smarter and learning more and more about spearfisherman and fisherman. This incident was different.
This is hardly Keith Love’s first spearfishing adventure. A quick perusal of the photos on his company’s website TexasBluewaterSafaris.com shows that he’s an extremely prolific waterman, one who’s come within pounds of multiple prestigious world records on more than one occasion. All it takes is one crazy ass encounter like this to shake a man to his core, but it sounds like this spearfisherman will soon be back out in the water, unruffled.
You couldn’t blame the guy if he were to hang up his spear gun forever, but at the same time it’s pretty f’n admirable to see a guy take a life-threatening encounter like this in stride. And here’s a video from the ‘Texas Wahoo Hunt’ back in 2013:
Anyways, go check out his pics on TexasBluewaterSafaris.com and go give ’em a look on Facebook if you want to see what some of the finest spearfishermen in the Gulf of Mexico are up to these days.
[h/t Texas’ TheFacts.com]