Fisherman in lucky escape from jaws of a shark
Terrified Scottish fisherman battles a seven-foot shark after it chewed through his boat and clamped its teeth around his foot, in scenes reminiscent of the film Jaws.
“This one was a bad, bad fish,” said 53-year-old Hamish Currie. “It was quite terrifying.”
The skipper and his three-man crew targeted the shark last week after hearing reports that a shark was attacking seals off Islay in the Inner Hebrides.
“A friend got in touch to tell me about the shark because I specialise in that style of fishing,” he said. “I took a crew of three up there to look for it because it had been attacking seals.”
The crew finally tracked down the porbeagle on Wednesday. Mr Currie, from Saltcoats, Ayrshire, tried to hook him and hoped to tag the shark and release it back into the water as usual.
Jaws
Porbeagle sharks [see photo, right] can grow to 10 feet long and are part of the great white family.
The crew used live cod bait to get this seven-foot fish hooked, which started the 90-minute battle for control. At one point the crew were chasing the shark as it pulled away from the boat in a scene reminiscent of the 1975 Steven Spielberg film Jaws. In the film, shark hunter Quint, played by Robert Shaw, battles a killer shark in Martha’s Vineyard, New England.
The real-life scenario was even more terrifying, Mr Currie told Scotland’s Daily Record newspaper.
“As we got him closer, his eyes turned towards me in a way only sharks can do and I knew he was going try and destroy whatever stood in his way,” Mr Currie said.
“He rammed us and the whole boat shook. Then he chewed a hole in the boat – which isn’t ideal if you are in an inflatable. We pulled him on deck with the plan to tag him but he wasn’t having it and was trying to get at us,” Mr Currie said.
Once the crew hauled the predator onto the vessel the angry shark gnawed a hole in the boat and thrashed around. Photos posted in the Record show the shark being hauled onboard and the damage to the boat.
‘He got me by the foot’
“He was nasty and got me by the foot. Luckily I was wearing steel toe-capped boots,” Mr Currie said. “I just couldn’t shake him off, but eventually one of my crew managed to help me free.
Mr Currie said his crew helped wrestle the shark away and remove its mouth from his foot, but Mr Currie was left shaken by the experience. He locked himself in the wheelhouse until his crew subdued the beast.
This was his closest call to date.
“I was very lucky this time,” Mr Currie said. “It has definitely made me a little bit more wary of them.”