lj 8/25 Mystery shark
 

Didn't catch anything other than a baby rock fish, 8 sand dabs and some bait. The waves coming back in were the worst I've seen. Put my nose into the sand and I had to bail. didn't flip the yak, but I saw quite a few tourists struggling. The high point of the trip was the 6-7 foot shark I saw swimming about 30 feet from the launch. Pretty cool! I am not sure what kind it was but it was definitely not a leo. It was grey with black at the tips of its fins. I was busy getting pushed into shore by the surf, so I didn't get a picture of it. I thought about swimming out to try and get a pic but I thought it would have swam off because it was headed north at a good clip. Any thoughts about what it could be?

Sounds like a blacktip or another sort of warm water reef shark that pushed up from down south.

I could have sworn I saw a salmon shark about 4 feet in length cruising with a leo in about five feet of water off the launch a few months ago.

I really wish I got a better glimpse or even a picture. Maybe I'll go out there after work tomorrow and chill in the same area waiting for it with my mask and snorkel and gopro with my yak anchored. It would be sweet to get a good shot of him up close.

Do blacktips come up this far? I think oceanic black tips go in cold water but not this shallow. Maybe I need to do some hands on research...

I saw a green sea turtle the other day in La Jolla and was like WTF?????

Googled it and got more info.

theres a bunch of them in the back of the SD bay. well atleast there used to be from when the power plant kept everything warm. supposedly there used to be a bunch of big shrimp and lobster swimming around the power plant as well

I thought I saw one swimming around the kelp but couldn't find it when I tried to chase it down and figured it was my imagination. maybe I did see it.

weird. was it heavy bodied or slender?

heres some pics of different sharks.

soupfin (from california, just north of LJ)
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...g/DSC00067.jpg

black tip
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ps7fe9538f.jpg

small dusky, they look about the same all through their life and are common to california
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...ps6b43a0a9.jpg

and bull
http://i73.photobucket.com/albums/i2...psba4960b2.jpg

they can all be found in socal and can have black on their fins. the others you might encounter are salmon sharks, great whites (they come in small packages too, saw a 4fter in oceanside harbor), sevengills, oceanic white tips, tigers and hammers.

You forgot our short fin MAKO!

After looking at all those, I would have to guess black tip, but I am not sure. I didn't get a good enough look at it.

Did it look like this?

Hard to say because I saw it from above.

I wouldn't question all the possibilities mentioned except one, the Salmon Shark. Most know it's in the same family as the Great White, and Mako, a few of the only warm-blooded sharks in the whole world, but Salmon's most typically are very far north of here, preferring much colder water, as is off the coast of Alaska. In all my life I've never heard of an account of one in Socal waters, not that I've heard everything there is to know, but I've certainly followed ocean fishing closely for 42 years.
Aaron

never knew bulls/hammers/tigers are in so cal. They prefer warmer water on the east coast. I was stationed in florida and i saw all three of these in a day at the pier. the hammer was 10ft east swimming around the swimmers and following the pier out to the deep....pretty intense.

I've heard of the young ones washing up on beaches all the time in california, but I really don't know how common they are.

they are hear, the pups run the shallow coastal waters all the time and wash up now and then. there was an adult school off newport a couple years ago.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heASYwQEsNY

i didn't mention mako because they don't normally have black tips, and i've never seen or heard or them having them.

hammers used to be a common catch back in the 60's all the to monterey. tigers and bulls are found along Baja California and have been sighted off of sand diego, they could easily be pushed up in numbers by a warm current.

I think the water temp at LJ has cooled down a little lately. I don't know. Hopefully, I get better look at him this weekend.

http://img.tapatalk.com/d/13/08/28/7ytete3u.jpg my brother seen this guy a couple summers ago on beach in coronado. Is it a great white or salmon?

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thats a salmon shark. too small overall to be a white and the teeth are more mako like.