Secret haunt for great white sharks

There’s a shallow reef along the Bay Area coast where great white sharks can lurk in winter. They roam in hopes of ambushing a sea lion, harbor seal or perhaps a stray elephant seal or its newborn.

Over the past 10 years, great whites twice have attacked kayaks here. The kayakers escaped without injury both times. Other sightings have turned the spot into something of a legend among kayak anglers, many of whom network their encounters through the website of the NorCal Kayak Anglers, www.norcalkayakanglers.com.

The site is Bean Hollow State Beach on the San Mateo County coast, south of Pescadero. It’s a small, curving beach tucked in a deep cove.

At its north end, a reef extends from tidewaters out past the surf zone. The reef is habitat for the marine food chain, and on calm days during the fishing season, it’s a good spot for kayakers to launch and fish for rockfish.

Black cod are abundant on the reef, along with the occasional lingcod and cabezon. In spring, after high tides, halibut often arrive along the sandy bottom at the entrance to the cove. On calm days in winter, right after the bottom of the tide, perch often feed in the natural troughs between sand berms within casting range.

This abundance of food draws in sea lions, harbor seals and, more rarely, elephant seals, which breed at Año Nuevo to the south.

The big sharks can loom just below and to the side of the reef, right where the fishing is so good. Big Whitey looks up and sees the silhouette of a kayak, or worse, one with a foot-powered drive system that looks like flippers (not a propeller). The sight can trigger attack mode.

At the Sportsmen’s Exposition over the weekend in Sacramento’s Cal Expo, kayakers talked about the most dangerous place to put their boats in the water along the Bay Area coast, and the consensus was Bean Hollow.

Years ago, I went to nearby Pigeon Point and adjacent Whaler’s Cove and found a group of 20 people on the bluff. An hour earlier in the cove below, a diver had been bitten in half.

I did not venture into the water there again — except, that is, in a very large boat.

Tom Stienstra is The San Francisco Chronicle’s outdoors writer. Email: tstienstra@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @StienstraTom