Northwest Dive Club

Hey everyone,

I've set up a simple web survey with the intention of pooling data from the recent rash of sixgill sightings. I know there have been a number of sightings by folks on this board, and I want to use this data to try and find trends. If you've seen one within the past 6 months, please visit the following link and complete the 3 min survey -- once we have enough responses, I'll tabulate the data and try to find some trends to share with you.

Please also feel free to send/post this publicly in hopes of increasing our sample size.

https://catalyst.uw.edu/webq/survey/slundy/175980

Finally, it also goes without saying, but PLEASE report these to the Aquarium as well!!!

Nice work, Scott. I made this post a sticky for now.

One suggestion would be to include images of male and female sharks with the male's claspers noted somehow.

Nice call -- an image has been added!

As far as I've read, all of the recent sightings have been at Redondo.
I hope we do get some sightings at other dive sites.
Looking forward to seeing what kind of results you get from this!
Better than that, I hope I get to fill out one of these surveys!

I think most of the recent sightings have been at Redondo, but I've also heard sketchy reports of sightings at Owens Beach and possibly 3 tree as well. Maybe this will help clear the air

I got a report from Jan Breckman that they've been spotting them in Howe Sound recently ... which is about as rare as around here. Perhaps this is a seasonal thing or something.

Anyway, Scott ... I'll go fill in some data when I have a chance. Might not be till the end of the week, with my schedule ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Grateful Diver wrote:I got a report from Jan Breckman that they've been spotting them in Howe Sound recently ... which is about as rare as around here. Perhaps this is a seasonal thing or something.

Anyway, Scott ... I'll go fill in some data when I have a chance. Might not be till the end of the week, with my schedule ...

... Bob (Grateful Diver)

Bob,
I think you have filled your quota on Six Gill sightings for this year!
I wanna see that picture of a Six Gill and a Lump Sucker looking at each other!
I'm sure you have one or will get one soon!

Scott,
Any chance you can share some of the reported locations from the database in this thread?

Thanks,
-Chris

Unfortunately I haven't received very many responses yet :(

All of the ones I have received are 3-5 mins west from the carousel boat at Redondo with varying permutations of details.

I don't know how recent you want. I saw three on dive at Sponge Hill (Hood Canal) January 2012 (yea, hard to believe but true, a once in a lifetime experience). Two other divers saw one on two separate dives that same day at the same site. One was seen at Flagpole (Hood Canal) on 8/10/12.
don

Reported my sighting last night, and it wasn't at Redondo so it's a new site!

Awesome, Austin! Where?

Tacoma Pooper Pipeline

kitsapdiver wrote:Tacoma Pooper Pipeline

ain't that poetic!

A friend of mine just reported a 5 footer at Les Davis tonight.

More trips to the Ruston Way waterfront seem in store for this weekend!

Saw a 4-5' six-gill at about 84' 10-15' north off the main rope (that leads to the carousel boat) at Redondo.

Scubie Doo - Did you snap the video of it and show it around at Divers Fair yesterday? It was pretty awesome!

finnegankp wrote:Scubie Doo - Did you snap the video of it and show it around at Divers Fair yesterday? It was pretty awesome!

That wasn't me. I just managed (4) mediocre photos to be honest, I was not in "capture" mode. I was really taking it in. This has been a moment I have waited for since I was certified. There were a couple other folks in the parking lot that said they saw the 6-gill too.

The video was from us - I've posted it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObLFh4Aesxc

I'm still amazed at the encounter - probably one of the coolest things to happen to me while diving.

dalangalma wrote:The video was from us - I've posted it on YouTube here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ObLFh4Aesxc

I'm still amazed at the encounter - probably one of the coolest things to happen to me while diving.

AWESOME! That was almost identical to my encounter. I was at about 84' on the 27th too.

Tonight Mark, Justin and I saw what appeared to be the same juvenile at Redondo in about 85fsw. With tons of divers looking for the six gill and tons of non-divers out for fishing enjoying the sunny day, the worst parking situation I've ever seen at Redondo was going on when we arrived (no street parking, no paid parking--circled and waited for 30 minutes). We didn't see anything on the first dive at around 8pm. By the time we started our second dive at 10:15pm everybody else had left. Jackpot!

On first sight, it swam around us for about 30 seconds before disappearing. Fortunately, it came back after about another minute. At one point, it laid on the bottom for several minutes. We then had to go due to approaching deco, but it followed us and appeared again once more briefly before we had to continue our ascent.

Of course, shortly after dropping it became clear that my strobes were just not going to fire. :angry: Thank ISO 6400 and some can lights for photographic proof!


Six Gill Shark at Redondo by decidedlyodd, on Flickr

DecidedlyOdd wrote:Tonight Mark, Justin and I saw what appeared to be the same juvenile at Redondo in about 85fsw. With tons of divers looking for the six gill and tons of non-divers out for fishing enjoying the sunny day, the worst parking situation I've ever seen at Redondo was going on when we arrived (no street parking, no paid parking--circled and waited for 30 minutes). We didn't see anything on the first dive at around 8pm. By the time we started our second dive at 10:15pm everybody else had left. Jackpot!

On first sight, it swam around us for about 30 seconds before disappearing. Fortunately, it came back after about another minute. At one point, it laid on the bottom for several minutes. We then had to go due to approaching deco, but it followed us and appeared again once more briefly before we had to continue our ascent.

Of course, shortly after dropping it became clear that my strobes were just not going to fire. :angry: Thank ISO 6400 and some can lights for photographic proof!

:angry:
That's what I get for bailing on the second dive. Where's the emoticon for kicking my own ass!