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Health & Fitness

I Caught a Shark and Let it Go

One of the most memorable and close-up meetings I had recently with wildlife was during a fishing trip in San Francisco Bay. We hopped on one of those tourist boats and went out for several hours. It was not that wavy by the way, and yes, we did see the America's Cup boats. They were fast and sleek.

During the trip, only two of us caught fish. A man from Florida caught a 40 pound salmon. It was impressive. He was proud. 

However, my catch was the most interesting. I put my anchovy-baited line down to around 42 feet, which was 10 feet lower than the other polls. That might have been the secret to my catch.

Then the line started moving in an unusual fashion.

I knew what it was when the driver of the boat excitedly yelled, "Shark on the line! Shark on the line!" I looked at my line and it was moving wildly.

I grabbed my rod and a few short minutes later reeled in an extraordinarily cool-looking four-foot spiny dog shark. 

Captain Andy helped me get it into the net. He said it was the biggest dog shark ever caught on his boat. He also said not to touch the back because it had poisonous scales. I quickly put on my gardening gloves.

Captain Andy dropped the shark on the boat floor and it writhed around like a cross between a snake and an alligator. It almost bit my leg so I jumped around a lot. I seriously had to do some fancy dancing to keep away from his toothy mouth.

Super brave Captain Andy then put on some gloves and picked up the shark and showed me how to hold it for the photo. My husband Dave, who by the way won the Male Heavyweight Division in the Los Gatos Dammit Run recently (Nice job, Big Mac!) got out the phone and started taking photos.

After a few shots and a bunch of congratulations, Andy instructed me to toss the shark back in the water. Mr. Shark looked like he was going to be fine. Andy took out the hook and he wasn't bleeding.

So I grabbed a hold of my new shark friend and launched him into the sea like a rocket.  It was super cool and I'll never forget the experience.

The funny thing was I was wearing my San Jose Sharks sweatshirt at the time.

Have you ever had an interesting run-in with wildlife?  If so, what did you see see or meet and were you scared?
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