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A seven-foot silvertip shark comes spiraling up from the depths to
check us out. (Photo by author)
Chuck still wanted more film of the silvertips. Bob Kiwala grabbed
a fishing rod and dropped the baited hook down to the ledge below.
He immediately hooked a five-pound black jack (
Caranx lugubris
)
and frantically started to reel it in. Chuck was leaning over the side
of the Zodiac holding his movie camera underwater. A silvertip came
spiraling rapidly up and grabbed the jack just before Bob got it to
the boat. Sharks have very poor brakes, though, and, unable to stop,
the shark banged into the side of the boat a split second after it
chomped o¤ the body of the black jack. Bob tried again, with ex-
actly the same result: he ended up with just the head. Now we un-
derstood why the sportfishermen had so much trouble getting whole
fish on board.
At that point we decided we'd better quit. It didn't seem like such a
smart idea either to go back in the water with a bunch of excited sil-
vertips or to have them slamming headfirst into our easily punctured
rubber boat.
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