Odds of being involved in a shark attack is 1 in 3.75 million, odds of being kill in auto accident 1 in 107, I would be much more concerned about the ride to the beach than the shark in the water.
Well let's be fair....I hunt in the water far more than dry sand....I saw a baby lemon shark within 2 feet of me on and off for about 2 hours last week. If you get in the water 25 times a year, and I get in the water 125 times a year (made up numbers) your chances of getting bit are far less than mine !! Very simple to deduce. Then add the fact that for work I often lead groups on dive/snorkel trips, then my odds increase even more....so you see ....none of this is trivial to me at all. Attacks are happening, there happening more often, and it's not just because more people interact at the shoreline. Yes...I agree car's kill more people. But I'm not talking about cars, or drugs overdoses, or shootings....I'm talking about sharks. The law has over protected sharks for years now and the populations are now disproportionate to the eco system....a man made problem !! I commercially fished for sharks for 20 years and participated in much of the research projects that were initiated by the federal government.....we literally took out every expert in the field, and many universities were participated on our boat. National marine fisheries observers rode on our boat tagging, taking samples, and counting numbers 80% of our trips. The facts are clear but not well known because it's bad for Florida touron business. The old one handed brush off of the facts is fine for those of you who rarely metal detect in the water, but for us who do it's an ever present danger that we must respect and be acutely aware of. I can't count how many close calls I've had just metal detecting.....one bull shark encounter will leave you with ptsd for the rest of your life !! And that's with out being bitten.
Now think about this....you shark fish for a living in the Florida keys, and straits of Florida, and much of the time in tropical storm season.....what do you think my odds are of getting bitten by a shark, or struck by lightning 🌩?? Well I've been bitten once, and had at least 3 or 4 more close calls, and our boat has been struck by lightning 4 separate times.....with many other close calls. I've also been hit by 2 water spouts that caused significant damage to the vessel. The whole odds game depends on the numbers that are input to begin with, and some of us have much higher input numbers than the so called "average person"
Last week alone my old boat, run and owned by my high-school buddy, and one of the last big sharking operations caught 3 separate great whites in 3 separate locations in the keys....all tagged and released by national marine fishery observers over a 5 day period .....they were astonished by these numbers.....we've caught them in large numbers for years here in the keys....these interactions and numbers are suppressed by the powers that be and you will never read about them in the press. It's bad for tourist business.
So for me, someone who is in the ocean on an average of twice a week, your statistics and odds game mean nothing !! I have to play my own numbers, and worry about my own chances of getting killed on the way there in my car, getting killed in the water by both sharks and lightning, and all the other hazards involved in what I'm doing IE: intended examples could be stingrays, barracuda, man-o-war, cassiopiea jelly fish, stinging sea nettles, idiot boaters, and yes believe it or not, salt water crocs.....and that's just the obvious. So this thread is not to scare, or intimidate, it's to make people aware that at certain times of the year...mostly summer, your odds are greatly increased of an encounter. The main reason is the seasonal pupping, (live birthing) in shallow water, and migration patterns of pelagic shark species along the shoreline. It's no joke for us that spend more time than most in the ocean !!
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