A four-foot shark has been caught just six miles off the coast of Cornwall - showing that they're now coming closer to the shore than previously thought. 53-year-old Patrick Davis, from Looe, took a group mackerel fishing around the Bovisand reef when a guest, Agne from Cardiff, snagged the shark on a mackerel feather.
Patrick hadn't been fishing for shark and was amazed the line didn't break, suspecting that the shark ate the fish that Agne had initially caught. After 40 minutes of tiring the shark out they were able to land it on the deck, remove the line, and free it back into the sea.
Patrick, who runs fishing trips on his boat, Fortuna, now believes sharks are coming in closer than before - adding that with changing sea temperatures it's only a matter of time until we see a "great white". He said: "It wouldn't surprise me in the future, if you look at the tuna we have now, we're seeing lots of different species - it's only a matter of time."
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Patrick said: “We were six miles out on a reef called Bovisand and a lady called Agne from Cardiff caught a blue shark on a mackerel feather. It was about 60-65 lbs and was about four feet long.
“We got the shark in very carefully, we played with it for probably 30 minutes to tire it out. Then we got the hooks out, got a picture with it, and put it straight back in.
“When we go shark fishing we're using up to a 100lbs line and 15ft of wire trace, and a hook length on the end of that with a big circle hook, but to bring one in and tire it out on line with a 20lb trace, it's quite a skill for the angler. She's a natural!
“Yesterday I went sharking and I went 20 miles offshore with a sharking party. We set up a shark watch and we had seven sharks, two were nearly 100 lbs and five about 30-40 lbs. But that's in the sharking grounds, and now we're wondering how many we've passed on the way out. Today goes to show they're just six miles in if not closer.”
Mr Davis, who operates a number of different fishing trips, thinks that the sharks may be even closer to the bay than the one which was caught. “When I was mackerel fishing last year we had a thresher shark which breached the water beside the boat and that was about two and a half miles out, and that must have been 200 lbs minimum,” he said.
“Had it been three or four feet closer it could have landed on the boat. Everyone got soaked. They're not aggressive but that tail can be dangerous.”
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