From: "Jeff"

| This past weekend I and the family went to Navarre Beach, Florida swimming
| and recreating. The fishing pier on the far right side of the beach has been
| closed due to damage by Hurricanes. While swimming, my brother in law
| pointed out a small (6 foot) shark about 100 yards out. There were some
| swimmers out there (a family of about 8 throwing a football around) who also
| spotted it swimming right towards them. They took off as fast as they could,
| every man for himself and all made it safely to shore. Two years ago, in
| either Pensacola or Panama City, at the moment I cant recall which, an 11
| year old boy had his arm bitten off by a shark in 3 feet of water and nearly
| died. Later the uncle who was with them said he had been surf fishing and
| the shark had followed his bait in, the same shark that bit the kid. Rather
| than alerting everyone he continued to lure the shark in, he was fishing
| among a large group of swimmers. This weekend, with the fishing pier closed,
| and swimmers out in full force for the Independence Day weekend, the
| fisherman were out as well. They were mostly late teens to early twenty's
| and apprently had no regard for the swimmers as they walked right into the
| groups of swimmers and started casting with large chunks (fist size) of
| bait. As I am sure everyone is aware, in an 80 mile stretch in that area
| there have been 4 shark attacks in the last week, including the deaths of
| two 14 year old girls. Last years hurricanes washed away most of the
| sandbars and larger sharks are easily able to get in with the swimmers. I
| think, it does not help to have fisherman out there casting bait into
| swimming areas just outside shark infested waters. At two beaches we went to
| (Navarre and Pensacola), we spotted sharks with bino's at about 100 yards at
| both as well as a lot of activity with baitfish jumping out of the water as
| though they were being chased. People regularly swim out to that distantce.
| As an avid freshwater and sal****er fisherman I personally would not fish in
| the Gulf or Atlantic near swimmers and I think there should be a law passed,
| which would probably have to be state by state that limits the distance
| fisherman can fish to swimmers. Anyone here had that problem or fished
| within groups of swimmers? What do you think?
|

Here in New Jersey swimmers *must* swim in front of Life Guards and inside a designated
(blue flags or ropes with floats) swimming zone. Swimmers are not allowed to swim outside
the swiimming zone and fisherman are not allowed to fish inside the swimming zone. That is
unless there are no swimmers or no swimmers and no Life Guards. If there are Life Guards
and no swimmers then you have to get permission from the Life Guard and usually you will
have to move outside the swim zone if a swimmer shows up.

My problem is with all the morons who walk along the beach and come within my safety zone.
I use a 12' surf rod and need at least a 20' ~ 25' safety zone round me so I don't hook a
walker. Luckily sunrise and sunset are the best times to fish and there are less people on
the beach then. However, if you are fishing the high tide during the day, this does become
a problem.

--
Dave
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