Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Sometimes Fish Eats You!

Or nearly so:

It was a dramatic weekend for kayakers in waters off Cambria: A Paso Robles fisherman escaped an attack by a great white shark Saturday, although his kayak didn’t, and another Paso Robles kayaker was plucked from the 51-degree-water Sunday in time to save his life.

Joey Nocchi, 30, of Paso Robles, had the big-fish tale to tell, after his kayak was upended and bitten by a great white shark. Nocchi and friends James Byon of Paso Robles and Matt Kerschke of Los Osos were fishing for rockfish at 1:30 p.m. Saturday near Leffingwell Landing off Moonstone Beach.

“We’d just about limited out on rock cod, and Matt caught two halibut,” Nocchi said. “We were cruising along together and talking.”

He was reaching for his knife when “I got hit from underneath and started coming up out of the water. My buddies said I came out of the water 4 to 5 feet — it flipped me over the side. The shark rolled the whole kayak over, rolled me out of it, and he went over the top of it. He swam across me — his tail touched me.” His friends estimated the shark was 12 feet to 14 feet long.

Nocchi’s buddies told him “the shark came all the way out of the water, jaws open, extra eyelids closed like they do when they’re making a kill strike.

“I swam back as fast as I could and got back on the back of the kayak. I didn’t even think to turn it back over.”

Nocchi said he was glad he did not fish alone, and added he’d likely stay out of the ocean for a while. “I’ll be bass fishing for a while, probably from the shore.”


Can't say I blame him for that.

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