Back when I was a kid, my brother and I started our version of a lemonade stand... Since we lived on Catalina, instead of making lemonade we did the next best thing and started catching fish for salt-water aquarium folk.
As things go it was actually a pretty successful business enterprise for a couple of kids. Once we moved from simply using an aquarium net to home-built slurp guns we actually started making money.
The downside was being the greedy kids we were we'd find ourselves festooned with plastic bags containing little fish all thrumming with danger danger Will Robinson vibrations which attracted sharks who thought someone had just rang a dinner bell. The worst were young adolescent Tiger sharks who would rip the bags off our belts and come back for more... Coming home from a hard day catching critters, the difficult part was having to explain to my dad how I wound up looking like I'd lost a fight with a belt sander.
Have I ever mentioned I used to be young and stupid?
Over the years while spearfishing and surfing I have had no shortage of up-close-and-personal experiences with a variety of sharks who never seem to have been interested in eating me but they have had some serious interest in fish I've speared and my surfboards...
Which is why I perk up when folks mention shark repellents as anything that makes sharks less interested in my upcoming dinner or surfboard would be no bad thing!
Shark Camo out of OZ is making a large decal you put on the bottom of your surfboard that says to sharks don't bother...
Since it's less than $50 and even looks cool it's sort of a no-brainer!
Another company that seems to have a viable product is Shark Shocker which is a wrist/ankle band containing very strong magnets that sharks and rays don't find pleasing. The video of various rays reactions at an aquarium petting pool seems to show that they just might be on to something. At a pretty reasonable $30, I'd certainly give it a try...
Hey, I'm no longer young but apparently still kinda stupid!
Listening to Shark-Fin Blues by the Drones.
So it goes...
