my needlefish theory

I have found that nearly  every hit in southern baja that I have heard of since my theory of 10 years ago is related to blue.     A friend went out on blue everything from head to toe and board and was hit on a non-major wind day.     Also I would like to make/note a differential hit, i have had needlefish jump when I startle them and they land on my board.    These are just startled and jumping, these do not have the speed to penetrate into a human.     these fish I have heard when going after food can hit 70mph.    well that is the speed that will penetrate.  



I have issued warnings on our local yahoo site and sure enough that day a person with blue was hit.     We have not had the huge consecutive wind days like we had 7 years ago.  


"The needlefish has struck windsurfers on numerous occasions since I
have been coming to the baja. The clue I had was 5 years ago(1999)
someone in the campground had told me he read in a windsurfing
magazine that in Hawaii there seemed to be some people that were hit
or large percentage of thereof had blue. Well that person later
went out that day with a blue fin and was hit by a needlefish here
in LaVentana. Thus it was ingrained in my mind so I starting
investigating the needlefish by asking local fishermen. Not much
is known but we know they are a predator, very fast and very lean.

The next clue I had was since I am here in April when the
windsurfing is usually great there are also generally schools of
fish all over. One type of fish that you see is the little blue
and white flying fish that when we sail by them they breach water
and fly. Also if you notice if they are flying in the same
direction as they breach water they are basically at the same speed
as we are. You know this by relativity as we say in physics, they
basically are in frozen motion relative to us.

Thus I believe what the needlefish are doing is jumping out of the
water in an effort to spear a fish out of the large flock of blue
and white flying fish.

Now why don't they do this all the time, my guess is that from the
looks of these flying fish they are not a top choice of food but
when the needlefish is starving they're willing to eat even one of
those. The needlefish being so lean "probably" has to eat very
regularly. They do not seem to have a lot of fat stored on them
so eating regular seems logical. We know that fishing is not good
when there are big waves/wind, this is not when the fishermen come
home with as many fish. IE that means fish can not or have a
harder time eating during that period. Also we know that fishing
is not as good during no moon but it can be good during full moon.
Also when we snorkel we do not see nearly as many fish around when the waves are a rolling.

This is why I issued my warning for that second day of the big wind
days we recently had and issued a major warning for the third day.
When we have big wind waves for two or three days and not a full
moon (if calm at night) the needlefish because of being so lean are
starving and will go after what they think are blue flying fish.

Thus because we are moving at a similar if not exact speed of a
flying fish and we have the clear sails that reflect light that
would be very similar to white spectrum reflectance and if you have
blue. From under the water because it is wavy we appear as
possible a large school of breached blue and white flying fish. I
have been tracking this now for 4 years and have not found an
exception to this theory yet.

My suggestion is to not go out with anything (board, fin, sail,
wetsuit, harness, hat, gloves boom) blue on the second or subsequent
day if the wind is big and comes up early when we do not have full
moon with calm water at night. And in the future when buying new
gear do not buy blue or leave your blue equipment up North. Simple
as that. Also stay away from the blue spectrum. We only have
one or so hits a year if any but if it is as simple as this we can
eliminate this issue.

To date I have not heard of a Kiter that has been hit, this could be
because either kiters are not out during these big wind wave days in
high numbers or because they do not have the white/clear sail
reflecting at the water level."

I have been told as of 11/2011 that two years ago a kiter was hit.  so i will see if they remember the details of gear in the near future.     So kiters also stay away from blue is my suggestion.  

dean devolpi

just for reference

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/bajalovers/msearch?query=needlefish&submit=Search&charset=ISO-8859-1

see post 104 and 106 i issued the warning for the next day, and the next day a person was hit. with a blue harness. this was Dec 29th 2003 not many warnings have been issued in the past 7 years, and not many hits either.

I want to also mention that when windsufing we spook not only the flying fish that causes them to breach water but needlefish. this happens all the time and this is not them trying to eat. I have had needlefish land on my board and they jumped from a foot away. They were startled and just jumped. Have had a very large one do this and it landed on my board and slid down and hit my mast and be stuck there for a few seconds which seems like a lifetime.

This is not them being a predator where they are coming at you at 70 miles per hour able to penetrate like the days when they are trying to eat. Flopping like this has no energy needed to penetrate skin and would be more like throwing a fish sideways at ya. Ya a slap in the face by a fish might hurt but no damage, just a bruise. whereas when people are hit that 2nd or third day it is a bill that is lodged in them like a missile.

for the theorized needlefish hit high probability days... these are el norte days in a row... days when you see whitecaps early in the morning and or wind very early. not the normal thermals that pick up at 11 and shut down at 5pm that we can have for 30-40 days straight.

from facebook

wayne facebook wrote:Well , I hope your theory is right Dean .
By the way , I was hit by a needle fish in late April 2015 , 2nd day of a good spring El Norte .
My windsurfer board was white , my sail green and blue . My shorty wetsuit, black with blue graphics . Got stabbed in the calf muscle , knocking my foot out of the strap , but i recovered and made it back to shore ok . A lot of bleeding ,but the fish was not too large , maybe 18” long . At the clinic in LV the puncture was cleaned out with no bone fragments luckily.
It could have been worse

here is a picture of a flying fish

from facebook

I had heard rumors of kiters, but thanks for the update i will issue the warning for kiters too in the future.
when windsurfing I have had several many needlefish do as you are mentioning. When we startle them they jump. That is not a hunting issue. I have had one jump and he kinda got stuck half and half on my mast base. then flop off. these were all non el norte days. Now the difference is when hunting they are moving from what I have read top end capable 70mph. A projectile at 70 mph is a tremendous amount of force and could fly far, so because my physics needs some refresher studies, i looked at velocity of a baseball, a needle fish may be even longer flight path because of the aero dynamics of its body. if it was 40mph it should go 95 feet. and when spooked they jump about 3 feet high that I have seen, and about 3 to five feet in distance. That is not enough force to puncture and break bones I have heard about.
also I think a flying fish is bottom of the totem pole for eating as it appears to me not a lot of meat. Only when starving do I think they do after those flying fish.
One time I windsurfed to the island with a friend staying at my place, he was on a kite. When we got there is was so eerie. again I had my theory and was going to die by it as I knew I would never make it to the island again. It must have been a mating ritual of needlefish. There were 1000s of them jumping all over at a separation of each one about 10-20 feet in all directions. Again being an engineer I knew this was not enough force to penetrate skin, but man was it eerie. for hundreds on meters as far as one could see, Jumping constantly and it was straight up.
So from the physics of it starting them and running into them does not have enough momentum to harm.
Now the sad part is my friend staying at my place asked me to join in his start up but I was too busy with two projects/inventions and declined, a few yeas ago he was worth a billion usd. ooops on my part.