Salmon Shark?

Hey! Hey! Hey! :shock:

For someone who loves swimming while out sailing or boating in the strait what are you talking about with respect to these sharks?!?! Mako relative??? How "close" a relative?? How big do these guys get??

Dammit Jason!! :shock: :wink:

EDIT
Okay...hang on....now I know this shark. I saw a show on discovery about sharks in Canada or something like that. Looking at the other names I now know what you are talking about.......but I hope they aren't in the strait

http://www.fishalaskamagazine.com/fish/salmon_shark.htm

and the second last point heading in the following link does NOTHING for me... :roll:

http://www.sharkinfo.ch/SI2_02e/lditropis.html

http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/SalmonShark/SalmonShark.html

Interesting, they seem to be along our entire coast! I wish I knew this sooner. Ever since I arrived in BC nearly 2 years ago, I have asked what shark are in our area, to be told - on every occassion - that there are no shark anywhere around here! I did know about the 6 - gills, but not about any other.

It seems I keep meeting fishermen here that have not got much of an idea what their local fisheries really consist of (present company excepted). Seems to be quite a few that know one or two things, but then little else, but still remain adamant in their minor knowledge that what they think/know is RIGHT.

Hmph, sorry about the rant, just letting off some steam after a pretty frustrating couple of years trying to learn as much as possible about the local waterways and not always getting very far. On a positive note, I have learnt an awful lot from this forum, so many thanks to all who've contributed.

Anyway, back to the Salmon Shark - yes please! Hey Jason, fancy having a go for them off your little inflatable? :shock:

Hey David,
there is a really good book put out years ago by DFO or an agence similar... it has every fish ever documented in BC waters in it - from albicore to yellow eye rock fish. The name is something like marine fishes of Canada's West coast it is about 1000 pages and I have only seen it in libarys... posibly you could getting a U book store. Funny thing about this 40 or more year old book is it has all the invasive warm water species brought by El nino.
I think some of the problem with asking what is in the water around he is because we have two very diferent water in BC. The coast water of the inside strait and inside passage which is greatly effected by tide tubulance and fresh water and tremperate Pacific. For example if you look at the intertidal life in the gulf is. compared to Howe Sound, in the gulf is. you will find tube worm, sea anemomies, ext. that you will not find in Howe Sound do to the amount of fesh water run off. In the inside strait you will also be hard pressed to find any other types of rock fish aside from quill back, copper, china, vermilinon, tiger, and yellow. Yet the closer you get to open ocean - starting around Pender Is. and Victoria the greater the chance to find bacaccio, black, brown whether that is to do with salinity or temprature I am not sure. The futher off shore you go the warmer the water... as fishingmagician can atest seeing blue shark off Languara. Then there other big eddies of warm water that can bring albicore, sunfish and leather back sea turtle. In short it is very hard to know what should be where as we are on a edge.
As for sharks you can assume that only two are encountered in the strait that often dog fish, and six gill (six gill only cause they cause a stir when caught or seen)... cat shark, I have never caught nor seen one, rat fish not actually a shark or ray, and skates - defining shark broadly. But if you are off of Bamfeild in late sept of a El nino year, all you temprate shark... white, blue, thersher, salmon, possibly mako.
I go in my inflatable for salmon sharks any time, I worry more about dropping a rock fish on the tubes than a sharks teeth... anyone want to come, Canada has not band white shark fishing yet, and I got a surf board that acking to raise a big fish.
Have fun, Jason

Hmmm...

kellya said:

Dont think salmon sharks get to 16 ft?

Click to expand...

Well...if that's the case..the guide was lying, the helicopter pilot and mechanic were lying etc...

Anyways..the Scotsman in question apparently had a 3 foot diameter. That's no small Scotsman.

According to the 'net, salmon sharks have been documented up to 11 feet. Not to say there's not bigger ones out there. Just like Salmon, there's a few in the 80's, not to say that ones bigger than 120 lbs don't exist etc..

I've seen some weird fish in my years, including netting an Opah at 100 lbs off Langara Island at almost 10 pm at night. I've seen salmon sharks from 6 feet to 8 feet, and let's just say when you seen one of those suckers beside your boat within a few feet, it's not exactly commonplace...

As for their claim of 16 feet, I believe it.

I was out hali fishing off Langara one year when a guide had a hali about 100 lbs or so. He harpooned it, and cut it's gills to bleed it out to pull it on board. I headed over to show my guests what a decent Hali is like in the water and what's involved. Unfortunately, about 10 or so 6 feet plus Blue Sharks had a mid afternoon snack on that Hali.

There wasn't too much left of that hali before long, let me tell you that.

At any rate, what's believable is one thing, what happens and what the truth is another.

At any rate, if you've ever seen an eight foot Salmon Shark beside your boat, it's a scary thing, because it's not something you're expecting.

Have no experience with salt water fishing but curiosity got me and I googled this topic. Here's what I got:

from:Florida Museum of Natural History (http://www.flmnh.ufl.edu/fish/Gallery/Descript/SalmonShark/SalmonShark.html)

Size, Age, and Growth
The salmon shark has a maximum total length of about 10 ft (305 cm) and maximum weight of over 992 lbs (450 kg). There are unconfirmed accounts of salmon sharks 12.1 to 14.1 ft (370 to 430 cm), but these may have resulted from confusion with the larger white shark. In the eastern North Pacific, female salmon sharks can live to at least 20 years, males to at least 27 years.

In the western North Pacific, males mature at about 5.8 to 6.1 ft (177-186 cm) in total length and 5 years, and females mature at about 6.6 to 7.3 ft (200-223 cm) and 8-10 years. Salmon sharks in the eastern North Pacific appear to have a faster growth rate than those in the western north Pacific and mature at an earlier age. In the eastern North Pacific, males mature at about 5.2 ft (158 cm) and 3-5 years, and females at 6.7 ft (205 cm) and 6-9 years. Also, females in the eastern North Pacific are in general larger and heavier bodied than those in the western North Pacific.