Florida Fisherman Pulls Shark From Water With His Bare Hands
A Florida fisherman has been dubbed the “shark whisperer” online after video emerged of him wading into the ocean and pulling a powerful blacktip shark from the water with his bare hands.
The amazing video, uploaded to YouTube by Greg Pace, begins with the unidentified man wading in waist-deep water, trying to grab the blacktip shark. As The Daily Mail notes, the shark was hooked at the end of a line while fishermen observed the action from the safety of nearby rocks. After a moment, the man successfully grabs hold of the shark, hauling it out of the water and clutching it to his chest.
“This guy couldn’t land the shark on the rocks, so he jumped into the water to grab the shark and then takes it up to the beach, unhooks it and releases it back in the ocean,” Pace said. “It was a blacktip shark and he threw it back after unhooking it from the beach. I saw him put the large ladyfish on as bait and freeline it for 15 minutes until the shark ate it.”
The video, which was uploaded to YouTube on September 15th, was filmed near Jupiter Inlet, Florida, according to West Palm Beach’s WPTV. A viral hit, the clip has already been viewed 270,000 times.
#VIDEO: Fisherman dives into water near Jupiter Inlet, grabs shark with bare hands http://t.co/M4kT14BoAc pic.twitter.com/LNw289JIS5
— WPTV (@WPTV) October 3, 2014
Blacktip sharks are hardly strangers to Florida waters. In New Smyrna Beach, an area of Florida commonly referred to as the “shark bite capital of the world,” blacktips are regularly responsible for maiming injuries inflicted on local surfers. Earlier this month, two surfers were struck by sharks at nearly the same time, just a mile distant from one another, as The Inquisitr has previously reported.
A blacktip shark inspects a surfer on a surfboard fitted with a electronic shark deterrent built into its underside. pic.twitter.com/jStDfX1iII
— Deep Sea Pics (@DeepSeaPics) August 2, 2014
In that incident, a 15-year-old beachgoer was injured, and while he did not see the shark that attacked him, bite marks indicated that its size was consistent with a blacktip. Kevin Ross, a 29-year-old surfer who was struck just a half hour later, was able to identify the animal that attacked him as a small blacktip shark. Neither victim suffered life-threatening injuries.
Normally a timid species, blacktip sharks have been reported to become aggressive in the presence of food. Blacktips are responsible for just 16% of shark attacks reported annually in Florida, most of which only result in minor wounds.
[Image: Greg Pace via The Daily Mail]
