An Irish angler hooked a great white shark from the shore of an Australian beach this weekend, receiving the shock of a lifetime as he fought the juvenile predator for over an hour.
Ciaran Casey hails from Ballyheige, Co Kerry, originally, according to the Irish Mirror , but has been living in Australia with his family since 2013. Visiting Golden Beach in Victoria on Sunday, Casey cast his line, hoping to land a bronze whaler shark, but was stunned when a juvenile great white struck his bait instead.
Catch and release, Australian style (yes, that’s a great white shark) http://t.co/CCGslhIA07 — via @DianeN56 pic.twitter.com/pF3dAMYxOR
— Paul Greenberg (@4fishgreenberg) January 6, 2015
“I started fishing at 6 a.m. and I was by myself for the day. I rowed out my bait, in a kayak, to about 500m,” Casey said. “Once I hooked up, I knew it was a shark. People started coming over and I told them to get out of the water. I’ve caught lots of sharks here, even ones that people eat, but I’m catch and release only.”
At first, Casey was unaware that the shark on his line was a great white. By the time it hit the sand, however, he was able to discern that it was indeed a young white shark, as Joe.ie notes. Though the shark measured no more than six feet in length, it was still capable of fighting adamantly against a grown man.
Look at the juvenile great white shark an Irish fisherman caught in Australia and released http://t.co/feXdt8Opd0 pic.twitter.com/XQAcpnELHb — DianeN56 (@DianeN56) January 6, 2015
“I was fishing for bronze whaler sharks and there was a lot of sea weed, so I didn’t know it was a white shark until I went to pull it out of the water,” he recalled.
“[It took] about an hour to reel it in. I had a harness on, otherwise I wouldn’t have been able to get it in. My arms were burning. In 35C heat it’s exhausting. It was the catch of a lifetime, especially seeing it swim away after.”
Earlier this year, a group of fishermen in the Outer Banks of North Carolina hooked a white shark, bringing it to shore before releasing it. As the Inquisitr previously reported, the event marked the first recorded catch of a great white from a shoreline on the Eastern Seaboard.
Casey didn’t want to leave the shark permanently burdened with a hook and line, and was able to safely remove his tackle from the great white’s mouth before releasing it back to sea.
[Image: Ciaran and Noelle Casey/ Facebook via Irish Mirror ]