Two fishermen had a close encounter with a deadly great white shark – and lived to tell the tale.
Angler Lucas Smith and his friend hooked the predator by accident while fishing in Australia earlier this month.
They had been trying to catch bronze whaler sharks in the shallows at Short Point in Merimbula, New South Wales.
Instead they were taken by surprise and reeled in the great white, The Daily Mail reports.
Nearby, there were swimmers enjoying a day at the beach.
Hair-raising footage posted on Facebook shows the shark thrashing from side to side as it is being released.
(Image: Facebook)
Great whites are a protected species and Mr Smith said he set the shark free as soon as it had been caught.
He said: “We target bronze whalers anything else is a by-catch and certainly not a targeted species.”
“We hooked two more sharks there in a short three hour session, while people were swimming right next to us.
“Was amazing watching it swim away healthy,” he wrote.
(Image: Facebook)
But some who saw the footage were taken aback by Mr Smith’s run-in with the wild predator.
“Might not go swimming next time we go,” one commented.
Another pointed out that great whites aren’t always keen on attacking people, saying: “It shows that sharks aren’t hell bent on eating humans”.
Although often portrayed as killers – especially after Steven Spielberg’s 1975 thriller Jaws and the countless scary shark spinoffs that followed in its wake – great whites are intelligent creatures and generally have little interest in eating people.
(Image: Getty Images)
Still, according to National Geographic, great whites are highly adapted predators and their mouths are lined with up to 300 serrated, triangular teeth arranged in several rows, and they have an exceptional sense of smell to detect prey.
Despite their huge size, they are listed as a vulnerable species due to overfishing and poor regulation.
Last year, researchers hauled a huge 17ft great white shark weighing more than 3,500lbs from the ocean.
(Image: Facebook)
Dubbed the “Queen of the Ocean”, the monster fish was discovered by a team from the non-profit OCEARCH in the Northwest Atlantic, near Nova Scotia, Canada.
Chairman Chris Fischer, who led the expedition, said it was the largest creature the group had ever tagged – a process he said helps researchers looking at the habits and practices of marine life.
Data was collected for 21 research projects, and involved taking an ultra sound, collecting bacteria samples from the shark’s teeth, and analysing fecal samples to learn about the animal’s diet. Blood, muscle and skin samples were also taken for research about the species.
The shark weighed 3,541 pounds and measured 17ft 2ins in diameter. It had lived more than half a century.
Mr Fischer said: “You feel insignificant standing next to such an ancient animal”.