Fishermen Kerry Grant and William McIntosh swear their ‘one that got away' story is true, they are not exaggerating, and they are telling it because they think people should know about a humongous great white shark near A beacon.
'We wanted to report it because a fish that size should not be in this place, let alone a great white,” says Kerry.
They were fishing about 1.5km west of A beacon from a 16ft Ally Craft on Tuesday afternoon.
A beacon. Image: Google Earth.
The pair had been out about 11 hours and had been plagued all day by bronze whalers taking bait and catches.
Kerry decided to try out a new rod and reel and threw out bonito tail on 24kg mono.
He lip hooked a 5-6ft bronze whaler shark and decided to play it.
They anchored and he played the fish for about 20 minutes.
The shark did its last dive beneath the boat and Kerry was hauling up what he thought was the dead weight of an exhausted fish.
'All of a sudden it just took off,” says Kerry.
'The reel was screaming. Then it really took off like it was hooked onto a train or something.
'Within 30 seconds of it starting to take off – what we saw next, I swear what I'm telling you is true, and there is no exaggeration at all.
'A great white came out of the water and took the whole bloody thing. Came right out of the water, completely out of the water, did the great white flip-thing that they do with seals.
'It was f**king huge. We never saw the length of it because of the angle it jumped on, but without a word of a lie, we saw the big white stomach and the black back and the shape.
'Very short and very fat, and the typical white pointer tale.
'It's stomach was about the width of the boot of my car.
'That's an under exaggeration, I'm trying to be realistic here, but you would have trouble getting it through a sliding door mate. It was the size of a car; it really was it was that fat.
'And the splash was like a container being dropped from a helicopter.
'It just took the six foot shark like it was a kahawai. It just ate it, straight down to its guts. I didn't believe it.”
He cut his line.
'He hadn't bitten through the trace and for about five seconds it ran with the line,” says Kerry.
'It was like being hooked to a bus doing 70km/h, you know.”
The action took place about 15 metres from the boat, says Kerry.
'I've been fishing a long time and I have never seen anything like that.”
There was a great white seen in the entrance last year says Kerry, but if it's the same one then it has grown a bit.
'Or it could be full of Rena tucker,” says Kerry.
'That's the other thought we had. It could be because of the big burley bomb.
'I do a lot of surfing too, and it's put the willies up me.
'It was just really impressive, you would even consider trying to catch something like that.”
7 comments
Posted on 16-02-2012 10:56 | By maccachic
We saw a huge splash in the Harbour last weekend, while we were out sailing. it was too far away to see what it was tho.
oh man!
Posted on 16-02-2012 13:28 | By sojourner
I can't stop laughing, this has got to be the best story of the year! True or not, great reporting too!
Posted on 16-02-2012 13:32 | By nacho
1..ive been traveling and been away from nz for last couple of years, i return to find that the nz has lost the kiwi way of being laxed and our she`ll be right attitude we are famous for has gone,not for all of course, but so many people are now living for the negative and thriving on any chance they can to complain and critise about every little thing they can from the rena clean up to bottle feeding on piri wepu`s smokefree add ,its crazy whats going on nz? and 2... i think this is bloody awsome Kerry and Grant you lucky buggers im sure like me there is a lot of jealous fishermen out there right now,what a story to tell!!!
Great White at Mount
Posted on 17-02-2012 17:29 | By Bowker
I was somewhat relieved to read the story about the shark sighting on Tuesday. My sons and I are convinced we saw the same shark at Clyde St around 6pm that evening. Not long after we got in the water my son called out that he had seen a "dolphin." I thought "how wonderful. i hope i see it too." About 20 minutes later he said he saw it again. I saw a splash, but nothing else, about 20m away.I thought "Great I finally get to swim with the dolphins" and started paddling towards where the splash was. Out it came from the water again and this time we saw everything and it was very clear it was no dolphin. Everything was as Kerry described it: the sudden thrust right out of the water, the flipping over of the body, the white belly, the black topside, the thick girth in proportion to the width. And in addition I noticed the snout which was relatively blunt; not really pointy like a Mako. This was about 40m offshore in about 6-7 feet of water. We paddled in swiftly, but without making any frantic fuss. Down the beach about 80m away was another group of about 6 surfers. we told the oldest of these about what we had seen and he just laughed at us. They all stayed in the water. Next day I asked a couple of people who know a lot about the ocean about what we had seen and the responses I got ranged from "It could easily have been a Great White" to more skepticism. Consequently, it was a relief to read the article and learn that at least five of us saw this shark on the same day. It's big, it's out there; take care.
There was a big shark
Posted on 21-02-2012 19:35 | By hapukafin
on tuesday 14th mid afternoon I spoke to a few lots of people who had come back from a helicopter ride around the mount and commented on a huge shark in the water.The captain of Aerius Helicopter will confirm this for you
Its definitely true!!!
Posted on 22-02-2012 19:40 | By unltd1nfantry
Around the same time mid last year (when the first great white sightings started around Tga harbour/matakana island) I was aboard a local commercial fishing boat deck-handing for my brother. We were 1km offshore off Waihi in 11m deep, just north of Steelz Reef. We steamed up right next to a 6m great white shark half the size of the boat. (boat is 11m long). I have seen it for myself! An experience I will never forget!!!!!!!!! ever!
Only a matter of time before a shark attack
Posted on 25-02-2012 12:04 | By Surfwatch
I was out surfing on Sat 25 Feb at about 9.30. There was a boat putting out cray pots just past the surf line all along Omanu beach. Now just how safe are swimmers, surfers, kids etc, from a shark encounter when there are these irresponsible people putting dead fish all along the beach. Must be a law against this. Questions are only asked after a tragedy occurs.
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