'There's a Shark in My Boat!' Fisherman Gets Big Surprise

The 440-pound visitor was nearly 9 feet long
By Linda Hervieux,  Newser Staff
Posted May 29, 2017 7:29 AM CDT

An Australian fisherman was nearly the catch of the day when a great white shark leaped into his boat. Terry Selwood, 73, was moored off New South Wales on Saturday afternoon when the 440-pound, 9-foot uninvited guest landed in his 15-foot boat. "I caught a blur of something," Selwood tells Australia's ABC News. "He came right over the top of the motor and then dropped onto the floor." The shark's pectoral fin whacked Selwood's arm and knocked him to the ground, where he found himself on his hands and knees, eye to eye with the wriggling shark. "I thought, oh my god, I've got to get out of here," he says. With his arm gushing blood, Selwood hurried to the gunwale and radioed for help.

"I thought he'd broke my arm," Selwood adds, "but it's just torn the skin off it." The fisherman was treated at a hospital while marine officials used a forklift to remove the shark. In his 60 years at sea, Selwood says sharks have brushed his boat and circled it, but he's flummoxed as to what prompted the creature to hurl itself some four feet into the air. Seas were calm, and Selwood says he was casting for snapper with a line that dangled straight under the boat, not the back, where the shark came from. "It’s a mundane old story," Selwood says, adding that he'd be back in his boat ASAP. So what'll he do for an encore? "I might find a crocodile to wrestle," he says, "just to stay in the limelight." (A shark was found in the middle of Aussie road.)

Get the news faster.
Tap to install our app.
X
Install the Newser News app
in two easy steps:
1. Tap in your navigation bar.
2. Tap to Add to Home Screen.

X