Big Bait, Big Fish — and Big a shark!
A Canadian fisherman was in for an unexpected surprise when he realized he was battling a Great White Shark in open water, CTV news reported.
Video taken by the fisherman himself, Rick Austin, captured the thrilling moment he attempted to reel in what he believed was a striped bass.
“She’s pretty big. Yeah, she’s pretty big,” Austin excitingly said. “Jesus Christ. What the f—k was that?”
That’s when he realized this was no small prize he had on his hook, as video shows the massive creature briefly maneuvering near his boat.
“I mean, seriously people, I got a glimpse of that thing. That thing is very large,” Austin said because the shark continued to chomp on the bait.
Austin eventually lets the creature break free after failing to reel it in, though he keeps his eyes ahead before it jumps out of the water.
“Oh Jesus!” Austin screams. “That’s a Porpoise. I gotta let that go.”
Nevertheless, Austin said biologists from Latest England Aquarium and the Department of Integrative Biology at University of Guelph confirmed he caught an important white shark, in accordance with the outlet.
Scientists claim the shark measures between six to eight feet in length, and weighs 200 to 250 kilos.
Porpoises, that are legally protected in Canadian waters, can weigh as much as 168 kilos and reach about 6 feet in length.
Great white shark sightings are common in Nova Scotia, as tagging efforts have been on the rise in recent years, in accordance with CBC News.
Nova Scotia can also be believed to be a mating site for the species, where studies show shark migration patterns in the world are consistent with being breeding sites, the outlet added.
Researchers in 2020 tagged the largest great white shark ever spotted off Nova Scotia measuring greater than 17-feet long.
The “queen of the ocean” shark dubbed Nukumi, recording as the largest within the northwest Atlantic, weighed a staggering 3,541 kilos, according OCEARCH.
The team took a series of samples from Nukumi and fitted her with tags to observe her movements before releasing her back into the ocean.
