A kayak fisherman was reeling in his catch when a shark appeared out of nowhere and attacked the fish before racing off with it, leaving the angler a bit amused, shocked and happy he caught it on video, otherwise “no one would have believed me.”
Stuart Richie, 36, was fishing in Luce Bay in Southwest Scotland earlier this week when he hooked a dogfish on light tackle.
“When the dogfish broke the surface I immediately saw something behind it,” he told the Mirror. “I tried to pull the dogfish clear, but the shark was too fast and turned with a splash and grabbed it. My rod bent as the shark tried to get away with the fish, and with a splash and final kick of its tail it snapped my line and was gone.”
“It’s always a shock when you see a shark shape in the water, especially when you’re so close to it,” Richie told the Mirror. “When it grabbed the fish, I was shocked and just held on. I was praying that the GoPro was recording as no one would have believed me.”
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When the shark snapped the line, Richie can be heard laughing and declaring it was a “shark attack.”
The species was a tope shark, also known as a school shark. It feeds primarily on fish, but it isn’t fussy about what kind of fish.
Richie, a navigator with the Merchant Navy, has been kayak fishing for five years and has caught tope sharks before.
“I have encountered these sharks before and they are one of my favorite species to catch,” he told the Mirror. “But I have never encountered them feeding in this way, which is surprising.”
Photos courtesy of Stuart Richie.