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whyfly · #1 07-18-2006, 12:50 PM

I keep reading about all the tuna hunters comming across whales and the great whale shows. I was planning on heading out to monemoy on Saturday with wife and kids for a lil fishing. In the back of my mind I was thinking it would be cool to come across some whales. Now I assure you I am not looking for the Charlie (as much as I would like to... didn't get a permit and gear this year) only for the whales. If anyone could shoot me a PM with an area I will look it up on the charts and determine if it is safe enough to venture to the spot.

thanks for any help

SamRiley · #2 07-18-2006, 01:34 PM

You should be able to find them 5-20 miles east of Monomoy. I'd head out as far as you feel comfortable and search north and south. Last time we were out there somebody hailed the fleet, looking for Whales for his daughters to see. I'd give that a try before heading out. Large pods of Dolphins out there too which are even more fun if you ask me.

Go Fish · #3 07-18-2006, 01:46 PM

If you are not dead set on Monomoy my suggestion would be the SW corner of Stellwagen and north to the BE bouy.

As of Sunday there were oodles of whales doing just about everything cool that whales do.

Just look for the unbelievably large cloud of Sheerwaters feeding on the bazillions of sand eels and the entire tuna trolling fleet not catching anything and you will have found the right spot.

The GAFFMAN · #4 07-18-2006, 01:51 PM

Sounds like you were amongst the rest of us for the past two weeks! Only thing you forgot to ad was all unhappy tuna fisherman having the bluefish chewing the $hit out of the expensive tuna trolling rigs!

Catching them did break up the boredom, but costly!!

JAVIDANGLER · #5 07-18-2006, 02:36 PM

I'd second GoFish's remarks. The Whales were all over the bank SW Corner to the BE and further East. Many of the whale watch boats were on the SW corner. Look the WW boats as the whales often put on an extra show for them. There were times Sat that you'd see 6-8 at the same time.
Don't know what kind they were but saw many sizes and in excess of 100 during the day.

Then again you could save the fuel and go to the local Ice Cream stand.

clambelly · #6 07-18-2006, 02:36 PM

if you head to monomoy, you might just get to see nature at its best...a Great White Shark devouring a large seal!!!

this was in the cape cod times this morning...

Quote:

A rumor with shark teeth
By DOUG FRASER
STAFF WRITER
CHATHAM - On Saturday, Paul Bremser was at Chatham's Lighthouse Beach preparing to go surfing. He had one leg into his wetsuit when he heard someone yell, ''Shark!''

He looked up to see a big fin circling a seal, just beyond the breakers about 75 feet away.

''After it came around in a full circle, the shark came off from the back side and cut him in half with one bite,'' said Bremser, a commercial fishermen with 28 years of experience fishing out of Chatham. The seal tried to swim away as a pool of blood spread around it. The shark went down, then the seal dropped out of sight.

''It's a classic, textbook, attack pattern for a great white,'' said Greg Skomal, shark expert for the state Division of Marine Fisheries.

The sight of a great white shark hunting down seals among swimmers and surfers is not comforting and could be the start of a disturbing trend.

In the 1970s, fewer than 20 gray seals frequented the waters of southern New England.

Since then, with marine mammal protection regulations in place, the seal population has exploded to about 6,000 on the Monomoy islands, making it home to one of the largest seal colonies in New England.

Lighthouse Beach is just a couple of miles from Monomoy.

''With an increasing seal population, in all likelihood we may see a redistribution of white sharks to target that,'' Skomal said.

Two years ago, Skomal tagged a 14-foot, 1,700-pound great white that was trapped in a shallow lagoon and coastal waters off Naushon Island for two weeks.

But, he noted, great whites are still extremely rare in our waters. No great white has ever been hooked in the 19 years of the Martha's Vineyard shark fishing tournament, with more than 200 vessels participating each year. And Skomal has been trying in vain for two years to find another great white to tag, after the tag fell off the Naushon beast soon after it was freed.

In hundreds of years, Massachusetts has had only three possible attacks by great whites, the last one in 1938 in Buzzards Bay.

''You don't have very high attacks on people, even in South Africa (where there are far more sharks),'' Skomal said.

Yesterday, the news of the shark attack was all over Lighthouse Beach, but it didn't faze any of the beachgoers.

A half-dozen seals popped their heads up near swimmers yesterday.

Donna Wilcock stood knee-deep in the water on a sandbar as her 9-year-old daughter, Ashley, waded back to her through the small breakers. She had heard about the shark, but didn't tell her daughter.

''She would have felt sorry for the seal,'' she said. Wilcock summers in Chatham, but lives in Virginia and sometimes vacations in Florida where sharks and shark attacks are more common.

Saturday's seal attack occurred near a remote section of the beach about a half-mile away, and Wilcock didn't think twice about letting her daughter swim.

Chatham Town Administrator William Hinchey said the town had increased patrols on land and sea following the incident Saturday, but had seen no evidence of sharks in the area. He said the town would continue beefed-up patrolling into the near future.

Skomal ruled out seal eaters like the Greenland shark, which prefers deeper, colder waters far offshore, and the tiger shark, a tropical species found 60 miles or more out in the warmer waters of the Gulf Stream.

He said he would be coming to Chatham to look for the shark and tag it.

Doug Fraser can be reached at dfraser@capecodonline.com.

(Published: July 18, 2006)