Tag: Great white shark

Boy, 16, holds up great white shark he caught, then gets bitten

A father was fishing with his two sons and daughter in Australia on Sunday when the incident occurred off Adelaide’s West Beach.

A 16-year-old boy who caught a 5-foot great white shark was bitten in the leg as he lifted it up by the tail to get a photo and to release it overboard.

The incident occurred in Australia on Sunday afternoon as Michael Ness fished with his two sons and daughter off Adelaide’s West Beach.

Son Nathan caught the shark, and somehow the family managed to get the shark onto the boat to remove the hook.

“I grabbed a pair of pliers, ripped the hook out of it,” Michael Ness told Australian Broadcasting Company. “Then he [Nathan] picked it up to throw it back into the water and take a picture of it, and as he picked it up, it swung around and grabbed hold.

“I reached down then and opened its mouth and the shark let go, and he hauled it up and threw it back in the water.”

The bite left two “big gashes” that required stitches.

“It happened very quickly because from biting his leg to getting it off was only a few seconds,” Michael Ness told 9 News.

As Michael Ness raced the boat back to the West Beach ramp, Nathan called emergency services, which met them at the dock. He was briefly treated at the scene then taken to Royal Adelaide Hospital.

The unfortunate incident hasn’t dampened Nathan’s desire to go fishing again, however.

“He even said as he was getting into the ambulance, ‘Can we go out tomorrow?’” Michael Ness told 9 News.

Man climbs into boat just in time as great white shark approaches

Two men, one fishing and the other taking a dip off the stern, were unaware that a great white shark was heading in their direction.

Two men, one fishing and the other taking a dip in the ocean off the boat’s stern, were unaware that a great white shark was heading in their direction.

The situation became more intense as the shark got closer and closer with filmmaker Carlos Gauna watching from his camera-equipped drone.

“The moment does bring me some worry,” Gauna stated in the video showing the encounter. “I move the drone closer and closer. They must hear it. Once again, I move the drone up and down.”

Finally, the man fishing noticed the shark and alerted his fishing partner to get out of the water. He did so as the shark came within 10 feet of the man.

Both men thanked Gauna with a thumbs-up sign.

The 10-minute video on Gauna’s YouTube channel called TheMalibuArtist does not lack drama. It opens with a spearfisherman, who is also oblivious to the shark that is swimming close by. The encounter with the boat fishermen starts around the 4:40 mark.

After swimming near the spearfisherman, the shark turned its attention to the boat and fisherman in the water, or at least that’s what it appeared.

Gauna, based in Southern California and whose works have been used by National Geographic and Discovery Channel, finally disclosed in the video why the shark was so interested in the boat. The fishermen’s catch was on a stringer in the water near where the man took a dip.

Gauna stated that it’s an example of people on the water needing situational awareness and knowing what attracts sharks.

Shark tagger offers blunt response to catch of giant marlin

An angler in Australia has caught and released a black marlin estimated to weigh 950 pounds, but not everybody is impressed.

Grander Watch on Saturday shared an image of a giant black marlin jumping behind a boat off Cooktown, Australia. The Facebook description boasted that the marlin, which was released, weighed an estimated 950 pounds.

Apparently, Keith Poe, a prominent California-based shark tagger, was not impressed.

Beneath the marlin post, Poe shared an image showing a massive great white shark alongside his boat and commented, simply: “5,000 pounds.”

Poe told FTW Outdoors that he caught and tagged the shark years ago off Mexico’s Guadalupe Island.

Poe now tags white sharks and mako sharks for the Marine Conservation Science Institute, run by Michael Domeier.

Keith Poe poses with catch of an estimated 5,000-pound white shark.

As for the catch of a 950-pound black marlin, it’s impressive. The catch of any marlin weighing close to or more than 1,000 pounds (a.k.a. grander) is considered rare.

The all-tackle world record for black marlin stands at 1,560 pounds. The record, set off Cabo Blanco, Peru, has stood since 1953.

–Top image courtesy of Grander Watch

Hunter in ‘shock’ as shark attacks dog trying to retrieve duck

A hunter’s Chesapeake retriever was killed by a shark Wednesday after leaping from a boat to fetch a downed duck.

[anyclip-media thumbnail=”undefined” playlistId=”undefined” content=”dW5kZWZpbmVk”][/anyclip-media]A hunter’s Chesapeake retriever was attacked by a shark Wednesday after leaping from a boat to fetch a downed duck.

The female dog, named Pepper, died from injuries sustained in the unusual incident near Port Medway, Nova Scotia.

The dog’s owner, who chose to remain anonymous, told the Global News that Pepper was retrieving her second duck of the morning when the attack occurred.

“It happened so quickly and was so shocking that even though I was looking right at her when it happened, I cannot say for certain what type of shark it was,” the hunter said.

The man hauled Pepper aboard, but she died shortly after. The shark, possibly a juvenile white shark, measured about 8 feet.

The hunter said he shared details of the attack with the Global News as a caution to area water users.

“I was very close to shore, in about 20 feet of water, and my dog was only in the water for a matter of minutes,” he said. “To my knowledge, this is the first time a dog has been taken during a sea-ducking hunt, and it is certainly the first time I have witnessed the violence of such an attack so close to my boat.”

–Great white shark image courtesy of ©Pete Thomas

Watch: Seal pesters shark, and a shark shares time with a butterfly

The unusual encounter of a shark and seal is captured in video, as is a shark and butterfly.

One wouldn’t think that a butterfly and a great white shark would be seen together in the same video frame, but that’s what occurred when filmmaker Carlos Gauna was out capturing video for his YouTube channel.

And not only did he capture a butterfly flying over a swimming great white shark once, but he did it twice.

Gauna, based in Southern California and whose works have been used by National Geographic and Discovery Channel, also captured a rare encounter of a seal pestering a shark, which he wrote “has to be seen to be believed.”

The butterfly footage starts around the 59-second mark:

The video footage is posted on his TheMalibuArtist YouTube channel, which specializes in drone footage of marine life.

How did he catch a butterfly and a great white shark in the same video?

Gauna explained to USA Today/For The Win Outdoors, “This time of the year is the time to catch such clips. While tough to get, there’s certain areas with a high number of butterflies and sharks at the same time. Just takes a bit of patience and eventually it happened twice in one day!

“Out of all the hours I’ve had observing sharks, it’s one of my favorite things I’ve witnessed, simply because it shows the beauty and grace of both creatures so close to each other yet existing in different realms simultaneously—below the water and above.”

Watch: Kayak angler at center of epic battle between shark, seal

A kayak angler on Sunday found himself in the middle of an epic battle between a relentless shark and frightened seal off New Zealand’s Eastern Cape.

A kayak angler on Sunday found himself in the middle of a frenetic battle between a relentless shark and frightened seal off New Zealand’s Eastern Cape.

Greg Potter was so close to the action, which he captured on video, that the shark rammed his 12-foot kayak twice as the seal attempted to use the vessel as cover.

“If it had managed to get me out of the kayak, that that could have been a pretty disastrous ending,” Potter told the New Zealand Herald. “I was dressed in full black. I can only imagine what the shark would have made of my legs thrashing around.”

Potter pedaled his kayak closer after spotting a disturbance in the distance. He soon discovered that he was witnessing a predation attempt by what he described as a young white shark.

“I’ve got a juvenile great white shark chasing a seal out here,” he says in the footage. “It’s unreal.”

The shark seemed unable to immobilize the seal during a chase that lasted more than a minute.

It was not clear if the seal ultimately escaped because Potter smartly pedaled away after the shark began to bump his his kayak.

“When the seal hid under the kayak, the shark came crashing up from underneath and smashed into the bottom of the kayak,” Potter said. “Then they did another few laps around the kayak, and then a second time, the shark again smashed the underside of the kayak.”

As for the shark species, we reached out to California-based white shark expert Chris Lowe and after viewing the footage he doubted it was a white shark.

“There are no black tips on the ventral side of the pectoral fins,” said Lowe, who runs the Shark Lab at California State University Long Beach. “It’s kind of hard to see from the video, but from the frames I stopped I couldn’t see distinct black on ventral side of the pects and the body seems pretty thin.”

Regardless, it was a harrowing encounter for Potter, who had been fishing six miles beyond Waihau Bay.

–Image is a video screen grab

Watch: Kayak fisherman unknowingly hooks into a great white shark

Rick Austin was fishing for striped bass from his kayak in Nova Scotia when he hooked into something huge. It wasn’t what he thought.

Rick Austin was fishing for striped bass from his kayak in the Minas Basin of Nova Scotia last week when he hooked into something big. It wasn’t a striped bass. It turned out to be a great white shark that weighed more than 200 pounds.

Austin posted video of the encounter on YouTube with a caveat for language, but CTV News also had it in a clean version in its report below:

When the fish leaped out of the water, Austin didn’t realize it was a great white shark, saying in the video, “That’s a porpoise. I gotta let that go.”

So he cut the line.

“My first thought was that it was a dolphin and that it would just spool me and then it would have hundreds of yards of 50-pound braid wrapping around it,” Austin wrote on Facebook. He realized it wasn’t a dolphin but a shark after watching his video.

Austin later had it confirmed as a great white shark by biologists from the New England Aquarium in Massachusetts and the Department of Integrative Biology from the University of Guelph, Ontario.

“They estimate it to be between 6- and 8-feet long, weighing between 200 to 250 pounds,” Austin wrote.

Celebrate Shark Week 2023 with 11 jaw-dropping photos of sharks

These photos are stunning.

Hey, it’s Shark Week 2023, the block of programming from Discovery that’s been going on for 35 years celebrating all things shark.

And that’s really the right move. Sharks are amazing, and sighting one — as long as it’s from far away — is really cool. We’ve seen Great white sharks in San Diego, we’ve seen sharks get rescued and even one with a name: Tough Guy.

MORE: “Sharknado” moment commands spotlight at surfing contest

So with all of that in mind, we decided to put together some incredible photos we found of sharks throughout the years. Check out the snaps of them below:

Watch: Shark sends top surfers to shore at legendary contest site

A drone pilot has captured footage showing what appears to be a large great white shark cruising through lineup at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa.

A drone pilot has captured footage showing what appears to be a large great white shark cruising the lineup at Jeffreys Bay in South Africa.

Jeffreys Bay is the site of the Corona Open J-Bay, featuring the world’s top surfers and scheduled through July 22.

In 2015, former world champion Mick Fanning was caught on camera fighting off a shark during a contest heat at J-Bay.

Last May, as Surfer reported, a 50-year-old recreational surfer suffered serious leg injuries during a shark attack at the legendary surf break.

In footage shared Saturday by pro surfer Nathan Florence, captured by Zoard, the shark swims lazily through an uncrowded lineup on what appears to be a practice day.

Florence writes: “Some groms came in down the point and said they had seen a big great white close enough to see its eyes!

“[I] had @zoard throw the drone up to see if we could spot it sure enough shark was cruising up the point! Tried to alert @riowaida_ with the drone it was nearing him and call people on beach to let the surfers know it was swimming right through lineup!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Zoard (@zoard)

“All turned out well everyone went in and and the shark just cruised its way up the point and went on its way! What a crazy thing to watch we know we playing in their home but to see how easily and mellow they can approach undetected is wild!”

In the footage, the surfers appear on edge after they realize the shark is close but the highlight is when Ian Gentil carves a top-turn and sends a cascade of spray over the shark.

The World Surf League competition, with one round in the books, will resume when the surf is suitable for top-level competition.

–Image is a video screen shot

Great white shark, Tough Guy, ‘lurking’ at Mavericks surf spot

A tagged great white shark nicknamed Tough Guy has shown up at Mavericks, a renowned big-wave surf spot near Half Moon Bay, Ca.

A tagged great white shark nicknamed Tough Guy has shown up at Mavericks, a renowned big-wave surf spot near Half Moon Bay, Ca.

“Tough Guy is lurking in the lineup at Mavericks! Tell your friends who surf this break,” Michael Domeier, who runs the Marine Conservation Science Institute, cautioned followers Wednesday via Instagram.

Tough Guy, a male white shark that has been detected near other Central California surf spots, measured 12 feet when he was tagged in 2021. Domeier stated that “he’s probably 14 feet now.”

Mavericks is an offshore break that attracts surfers from around the world, primarily during the winter when north swells deliver massive waves.

Reads one of the comments beneath Domeier’s post:

“Confirmation that not only does Mavericks get insanely large [during]  gargantuan swells. It also gets insanely large White Sharks. Making it the most dangerous place to surf on the planet when these two factors are in play.”

–Generic white shark image courtesy of Michael Domeier/MCSI