The ‘Jaws’ Effect

 

THE WATER WAS COLD, stained and rough.

Stormy seas had stirred up the sediments, creating brown-tinged visibility that only allowed me to see out 15 feet at best. And with subsurface temperatures in the lower 50s, the environment inside the shark cage I was in alone seemed surreal.

It was like some bizarre dream but then reality came crashing in. A small school of fish and a few squid had gathered in front of the cage and they all left in a flash.

Something spooked them.

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And suddenly it was like someone piped in the “Jaws” theme as I saw a massive dark shape maneuvering below the cage. It would move in and out and then around and disappear.

At one point it kicked up the silt into the bottom of the cage and I feared being enveloped in darkness and maybe just a tad bit of what was swimming just below the line of visibility.

That was the beginning of an incredible experience cage-diving for great white sharks in the Pacific Ocean in the Farallon Islands.

It was a dream born from seeing “Jaws” for the first time as a little kid watching an ABC Movie of the Week. I was too young to have seen it in theaters, but the film had no less an impact on me on the small screen.

I was blown away at the idea of great white sharks and thought the characters Mr. Hooper and Capt. Quint were incredible.

I vowed to one day see great white sharks and that fateful viewing along with seeing Jacques Cousteau ocean specials inspired me to seek out such an opportunity. And it had a whole lot to do with my interest in the ocean and marine conservation.

This year is the 50th anniversary of “Jaws” and while there’s no doubt the landmark film stirred up plenty of fear about sharks and might have even spawned some persecution of great whites, it has inspired many people to get into shark conservation.

Top great white researcher Dr. Greg Skomal told me last year he decided to study sharks when seeing Richard Dreyfuss’ portrayal of Hooper.

When I was 12-years-old my Dad took my friend Chris and I fishing on the 61st St Pier in Galveston. That night some of the anglers were catching small bonnetheads.

I was blown away.

This was my first time seeing sharks in person and it all became very real to me that night.

I remember standing with my Dad staring at a full moon glimmering over the surf. I asked whether there were any great whites in the Gulf and even in Texas waters.

“Maybe so,” Dad said.

Then in 2005 my friend Capt. Ryan Warhola saw a great white while fishing at an oil rig about 55 miles out of Sabine Pass and I began a full-on investigation of their presence in the Gulf.

It was exciting to see sharks tagged by Ocearch pop up on the Gulf side of Florida a decade later and in 2021 Texas Fish & Game broke the story of their tagged great white that showed up about 125 miles off of Galveston. 

As exciting as that was it was still distant to the public, but on Feb. 26, 2024, a great white shark closed the distance in a big way showing up 100 yards from the beach at South Padre Island.

 “LeeBeth,” a 14 foot, 2,600-pound great white shark, breached the surface and allowed the tag affixed to her dorsal fin to connect with a satellite. That fed her coordinates into the Atlantic White Shark Conservancy’s (AWSC) app “Sharktivity” app and made history.

For 20 years I have been investigating accounts of great whites in the Gulf and this story shifted the dynamic of the topic in amazing ways.

LeeBeth was fitted with a satellite tag by Capt. Chip Michalove of Outcast Sportfishing and AWSC’s Megan Winton off the coast of South Carolina. After leaving South Padre she went all the way up the Texas Coast, passing a few miles from the rig where Warhola had his encounter. Then she went all the way up to Nova Scotia!

 “LeeBeth has by far been the most ‘ping-happy’ shark of those tracked by our program,” said Megan Winton, AWSC Research Scientist.

“Every shark is different, and some spend more time at the surface than others. The track from her fin-mounted, real-time satellite tag is helping us better understand the species’ migration in the Gulf and fill in the gaps associated with the other tag types we use to track the species’ movements.”

My interest in all of this dating back to “Jaws” has an exciting tie-in for the film’s 50th anniversary. 

I am producing a documentary called Gulf Great White Sharks: Return of an Icon and I am doing it with cinematographer Paul Fuzinski who you know from doing our Aptitude Outdoors column.

We will be debuting it at a public viewing and a special shark seminar at the Museum of the Gulf Coast in Port Arthur 2 p.m. Saturday June 21. That will be 50 years exactly to the weekend “Jaws” debuted in cinemas around the country and changed movie-going forever.

It also changed me forever as great white sharks have taken a bite out of my heart that have made me want to promote their education and stand for their conservation.

When I jumped into that shark cage 20 years ago, it wasn’t being brave. Heck, I was scared, excited and blown away all at once.

It was knowing if I didn’t do it that I would let a lifelong dream pass me by. And in a world that seems increasingly chaotic, we need to chase more of those dreams-even if those dreams sport razor sharp teeth.

(Go to www.gulfgreathwhites.com for details about the film and viewing.)

 

Email Chester Moore at cmoore@fishgame.com