These almost unbelievable shark stories come from real life captains who were lucky enough to get away unscathed. Their accounts are just a sample of the real events happening in the ocean that laps our coastlines. We’re not trying to scare you out of the water. We just wanted to give you some tips the next time you head out on the water.
wild horse
The night was quiet, and everyone was asleep except one person. Devlin Russell drew his cudgel and went on watch. He’s the youngest angler aboard the Sportfisherman, and his grandfather, the captain of the 52-foot boat, isn’t about to give up on sleep.
“We were tied to a buoy about 60 miles off the coast of Grand Island, Louisiana. I was so bored that I wanted to try and catch some tuna while everyone was asleep,” Russell said of that summer night in 1986.
“I started playing with some trash fish we had caught. Around 2 a.m., I heard something hit the stowed harbor leg. I looked over and saw a 200-pound mako shark falling into the boat with the red leg halyard stuck in its gills,” Russell said.
Apparently, the shark charged towards the oil slick and then free-jumped nearly 6 feet into the air, colliding with the outrigger unit.
“If that fish hadn’t hit the outrigger, it would have crashed right into the cabin,” he said. “When it fell into the boat, the halyard broke and the fish fell into the cockpit – still alive.”
The 6.5-foot-long shark suddenly erupted.
We recently replaced the fighting chair and tackle table. So, of course, the first thing the shark bites is the fighting chair. Within seconds, it tore the thing into shreds. It then moves to the shovel station, where in between chewing the wood and banging it with its tail, it turns the wood into a pile of splinters. “
By then, Russell’s grandfather and the rest of the crew had woken up from the impact of more than 200 pounds of fish on the boat.
“My grandfather walked out with a pistol. Seeing the shark and its devastating trail, my grandfather aimed the gun at the fish. But he quickly reconsidered. We didn’t need to punch a hole in the boat. Instead, we grabbed a couple of heavy-duty harpoons and eventually pinned the shark to the corner of the boat near the marlin gate. When the shark grabbed one of the steel harpoons and bent it like a spoon, I grabbed a knife and started stabbing but it didn’t go well,” Russell said. In response, the shark released the harpoon and spun around, narrowly missing Russell’s ankle.
After fighting the creature for 20 minutes, the crew finally opened the marlin’s door and pushed the shark back into the sea.
“It was the longest 20 minutes of my life. That mackerel ended our fishing trip. We had to return to the shipyard the next morning. Bottom line, that fish caused $15,000 worth of damage. The entire cockpit had to be rebuilt.”
face to face
outdoor living
On a gray morning on July 27, 1991, off the coast of Point Judith, Rhode Island, Captain Joe Pagano, his cousin Vinnie Cleary and friend Steve Daniels spotted what appeared to be an overturned boat floating in the distance. Just a few miles offshore, the trio decided to investigate.
It turned out that the vessel was a 35-foot fin whale that had just died and leaked fluids for hundreds of yards. The sleek stuff attracts apex predators, and bite marks 4 feet wide on the sides of the carcass indicate its presence.
“We knew there was a large shark eating that whale,” Pagano said, “but we didn’t know how big.”
As the captain marked the fish on the depth sounder, he saw a huge hook on the screen. There was something huge near the bottom in 60 feet of water.
“We rigged up a 180-pound monoline with a double leader, caught the largest tuna hook we had in the boat, a 14/0, and floated some bait right next to the fish,” Pagano said. No dice.
“Then we thought we should match the hatch, so we pulled up next to the whale and Vinnie started cutting a piece of meat off the whale’s carcass. Suddenly, he took a step back, gasping for breath. No words came out.”
As Cleary sawed off a piece of bait, he saw the shark—a huge great white. It surfaced just on the other side of the whale, and Clary was leaning precariously against the side of the boat. He saw its coal-black eyes. He saw that its jaws were filled with serrated teeth and were wider than a steak knife.
“He said it was bigger than we could handle. It really scared him. He couldn’t go near the boat anymore,” Pagano said.
Finally, they removed a 5-pound piece of blubber and attached it to the hook. (It would be a few years before it became illegal to use blubber as bait and intentionally fish for great white sharks.) It only took five minutes before he was bitten.
“We let it swim for almost a minute before we set the hook, and to the fish it felt like a fly landing on your arm.”
Anglers expect the fish to panic once pressure is applied, but this is not the case. The behemoth kept a slow and steady pace, almost indifferent to the troubles of the angler it was connected to.
“We tightened the drag as much as we could and basically rolled the boat up to the shark,” Pagano explained.
Perhaps the most surprising part of this story is that Pagano wasn’t fishing on a giant boat. His boat, the Osprey, is a simple 23-foot cabin cruiser. When the shark first surfaces, it appears to be almost as long as the boat. The shark’s girth is nearly 10 feet.
After being dragged away by the shark for two and a half hours as the huge beast vomited chunks of whale meat, the three men arrived at the huge white boat.
“We harpooned it and it surged under the boat. Unfortunately the harpoon line got caught on the prop. So, we harpooned it again and held it tight to the boat by hand.”
Cleary held his legs and Captain Pagano was lowered headfirst into the water. His face was inches from the surface, his elbows sorting out the mess underwater, as giant sharks loitered nearby.
Eventually, the strut was released and the three men secured the shark with a rope. The battle is over. At the dock, biologists measured and weighed the fish: 15 feet, 6 inches; 2,909 pounds. At the time, it was probably the largest fish ever caught on rod and reel.
one inch from death
outdoor living
Captain Steve Quinlan and his fishing buddies were hanging out off the coast of Los Angeles when this giant shark first appeared. It was June 2006, the start of mako shark season, and the pair were getting up close and personal without any bait, hoping to bring a beast up from the depths.
“When I target mako sharks, I don’t want to trick bycatch or small sharks. So the bait stays in the boat until I see the big fish get into the slick,” Quinlan explained. By seeing a fish, he meant seeing signs of a coming giant. Seagull informed him of the situation.
“The gulls land among the gulls and peck at small debris floating on the water. If you gull there long enough, you’ll have a gull island next to your boat.”
After four hours of intimate contact, the bird raft floating near his 29-foot Pro Line was significant until the last seagull took off. Then several more followed. Immediately, a violent, white, and chirping seagull rose into the sky and completely left the area.
“When a big shark comes in, the gulls run away from Dodge,” Quinlan said. “They don’t want to be a meal.”
When the mako swims toward the boat (they come at 8 to 9 knots), it looks like a submarine about to surface, the water being pushed aside by the fish’s massive girth. Then the tip of the dorsal fin breaks through the water. Suddenly, the shark appeared, just a few feet behind the boat. The two anglers immediately tossed chunks of tuna meat, putting the predator into feeding mode.
“When we saw her eating, we dropped the bait and she ate it,” Quinlan said.
The fight was not unusual for a fish that weighed about 500 pounds and was estimated to be 9.5 feet long. It took the pair about an hour and a half to reach the shark boat. That’s when everything went crazy.
“I had a flying harpoon and the distance between the harpoon tip and the barb was about 12 inches, which meant you had to penetrate the fish to sink the barb. Well, I hit her as hard as I could. The problem is, mackerel are very sensitive and will flinch once they feel the harpoon tip, so I didn’t sink the fish past the barb.”
The shark went crazy as Quinlan pushed it further. With a flick of its tail, the mako shark went from a horizontal position close to the side of the boat to a completely vertical position, flying out of the water and towards the captain.
“Before I knew it, my face was covered in shark teeth. I could smell her breath. I saw putrid flesh between her jagged rows of teeth. She closed her mouth an inch from my face,” Quinlan said. He tried again to secure the harpoon and the shark attacked again.
Read next: I fought a giant tuna near the Bermuda Triangle. Then the shark appeared
“The second time she rushed towards us, she bit the side of the boat so hard that she almost knocked us down. Her upper teeth got stuck on the anti-scratch rail, and her lower teeth not only pierced the gelcoat on the bottom of the boat, but also tore through the fiberglass!” said the captain. After a final blow, Barb found a home and the shark was contained.
“Looking back, I was really lucky. If I had tried just a little harder, she would have had me. It was a humbling experience.”
Quinlan still provides coaching for the Trophy Mackerel, but he avoids potential fumbles by practicing catches and releases.
