Great White or Basking

[Fish On]

Saw a ashark yesterday while trolling. First spotted the fin and decided to troll near it to get a better look, expected to see a sun fish. Shark was about 16 to 20 feet in length. The dorsal fin was somewhat rounded at the top. I could also see the white underside from the pectoral fins forward, but beyond that I coulnd't make out any distinguishing charateristics. Any experts have an opinion? Water was about 66 degrees F, 250 feet deep.

[Rob Rockcrawler]

Not an expert by any means, but when i was out on the Yankee patriot on saturday we say a large dorsal as well. Bout a foot and half outta the water, rounded on the top, couldnt see the underside because we were a couple hundred feet away but the consensus was it was a whale shark.

[schoolie monster]

Not an expert, but watch all the discovery channel stuff. Basking sharks swim with their huge mouth open and filter the water for plankton. The mouths are open and their gills are puffed way out.

Again, never seen either in person. If you were close enough to see the head, basking sharks look pretty distinctive when filtering.

[thefishingfreak]

most likely a basker. there gathering east of stellwagen this time a year. last year we spotted over 30 different ones in one outting. i will tell you shark fishing seems pretty bleak if there are alot of baskers arrround. every time we've seen them in numbers we get the skunk on shark trips so i try to stay away from them..


a 16' white would be about as close to the largest great white ever landed.
a 20' white shark?? no way.
baskers don't allways have there huge mouth open so they sortof have the same profile as a white.


here's the difference

[Mr. Sandman]

probably a Basking shark, I saw 6 of them yesterday. You see a large triangle like fin that sort of looks like a giant great white but the color is more brownish and when they feed they poke their nose up to the surface some times. (You might have seen a large brown shark too? I am not an expert either but I saw a big brown once and it was huge it looked like a small island)
I posted a few pics once on this thread: http://www.striped-bass.com/Stripert...ad.php?t=24511

Here is what looks like from below