A New Zealand charter boat out hunting kingfish happened to hook something bigger than it intended this week: a Mako shark that skipper Ryan Churches estimated to be 330 pounds and eight to nine-feet long. He described the incident as “bonkers.”
“We were all watching the rod and the line was going out to the side of the boat and it changed direction suddenly… it just happened to jump at the same time and we got a hell of a fright.”
“The customers reacted better than what a lot of people would have,” he continued. “The cameras were out, but they probably didn’t realize the danger we could have been in. We were lucky it was on the front of the boat and we had windscreens and hard tops blocking it. We were lucky it didn’t come into the back of the boat otherwise it could have a wildly different story.”
Mako sharks are known to leap into the air when hooked, and are sometimes specifically targeted by sport fishermen for that reason. But rarely do they land on the boat fishing them. When Churches’ customers tell the story of their fishing adventures, they’ll have viral proof to back it up.
Learn more about sharks in Ocean Ramsey’s Guide to Sharks and Safety.
