Was going to put this in the NSW forum but I thought it best if everyone had a read.
Huge great white shark seen in NSW lake
July 9, 2008, 4:23 pm
A large great white shark has been sighted in a lake on the NSW Central Coast, prompting warnings for people to take caution in surrounding waterways.
A commercial fisherman snagged the beast on Wednesday morning while casting nets off Canton Beach, on the north side of Tuggerah Lake, which opens into the Pacific Ocean at The Entrance.
A police statement said the man was forced to release his nets when the full-grown white shark, estimated to be up to seven metres long, became entangled in them.
NSW Police are working with Wyong Council, Surf Life Saving Australia, coastal patrols and the NSW Fisheries Department to monitor the area.
Police said people should take caution when using the interconnected waterways of Tuggerah Lake, Budgewoi Lake, Lake Munmorah and the Entrance Channel.
No one was injured during Wednesday's incident.
Had a 5.5m white come up alongside our boat once whilst fishing, wife gave it a pat!
(I nearly shat!)
7m would be around 1.5m across the body, and a span of about 4m fin-to-fin.....impressive!!!
Ol' fella (or lass) is probably just doing a bit of sunbathing.![]()
Whats the current sate of the openning at The Entrance - usually its pretty shallow with only ankle deep water trinkling in an out with the tides? Maybe with all the rain of late its opened up a bit.
Hard to imagine a 7m whitey swimming in.
Of the people that I know that sail up there, I must have been the only one that saw a very similar story last year about a sighting of a shark. Does this happen (the news stories) every year or are the locals trying to get rid of the windsurfers?
I don't think it matters too much for sailing at Canton beach as any great white that can get to you is either very small or very long and skinny. I think you could spot a dorsal fin a mile away as the water is literally knee deep.
Yer nothing new here, in Lake Macquarie in the last 5 years we have seen about 10 different bull sharks, biggest was 3m + sunning itself, these tend to hang around the same area's,there has been a 3.5m tiger shark swimming with a hammerhead of similar size, someone recently seen a white in there, not sure of the size but it was decent, there has also been 2 stories 1 with photo's of sharks going people, one was a young kid who fell off the back of his dingy while in a race, the shark was coming straight at him but the rescue boat managed to park between him and the shark, and they dragged him onboard just in time, but the kid hadn't seen the shark just the guys on the rescue boat, we where actualy sailing a few hundred meters away and seen the same shark hanging around earlier, the other one was on the front page of our paper, a wakeboarder had just got back up riding again after a fall, the photo shows him coming out the water with a nice sized fin about 10 foot behind him.
since they have stopped commercial fishing in our lake the sharks have found a new spot for lunch, and the surf is getting worse, with a new breeding ground forming at stockton beach for whites, lucky no one has had a bite out of them yet.
Seems a similar type of story pops up now and then and its always a white at Canton. Maybe that part of the coast is in need of some revenue so the locals trot out the story and the next weekend tourists appear in droves.
Not that there is anything wrong with that[}:)]
If it was a 7 meter white I hope it had its dorsal weed fin on. You could see a shark that size a long way off especially if it was dragging a 200 kgs of weed on its dorsal and pectoral fins ![]()
A mate of mine who lives up that way just sent me this......
www.smh.com.au/national/lakes-nessie-the-shark-a-lot-of-bull-20080710-gdsll3.html
a long time ago.... well, when i was about twelve, an old fisherman/diver friend of my late grandfather told me a story about australias' own nessie, reckons he knew someone who netted it, and was warned by an old aboriginal man who quoted him a legend about it... he told me that all the lake and river systems along the east coast are linked underground...
www.mysteriousaustralia.com/australian_nessie_mainpage.html
I suspect the fisherman has just switched from pre-mixed alcopops to mixing them himself.
Interesting article on Great Whites including some great photos:
www.whitesharktrust.org/pages/mediaarticle/media25.html
Perhaps it's a large bull shark as they sometimes like fresh water, which is maybe worse
. Da daaa..... Da daaa...