A fisherman recorded a remarkable catch after hauling a massive great white shark onto the sand at one of Nantucket’s busiest beaches.
Elliot Sudal, 37, landed the shark Sunday at Nobadeer Beach in Nantucket, Massachusetts.
Sudal, who has spent 13 years fishing around the well-known island, is no stranger to reeling in sharks from the shoreline.
He told the Nantucket Current that he has caught more than 1,000 sandbar sharks and hundreds of dusky sharks off the beach.
But Sunday’s encounter was a first for Sudal, a Burlington, Connecticut, native, who said he had never before brought in a great white. The dramatic moment was captured on video.
Footage filmed by Bryner de Oliveira Damasceno shows Sudal dragging the shark in by its tail and climbing onto the animal after it reached shore.
Sudal removed the hook from the prone shark, which laid motionless on the sand as ocean water struck its face and onlookers reacted in amazement.
‘Wow, that’s sick,’ one said, as Sudal dragged the great white back into the water by its tail.
Video captured the moment that Elliot Sudal, 37, pulled in a great white shark onto the shores of Nobadeer Beach in Nantucket, Massachusetts, on Sunday
Sudal said it was the first great white he ever wrangled. He released the shark ‘safely and quickly’ after the creature was initially hooked
The fisherman said he posted the video because he felt like he did ‘everything right in that situation.’
‘Shark was in the surf, removed the hook and sent her back to sea in about 15 seconds,’ Sudal told the outlet.
He insisted that he was dealing with a serious situation that required him to get the shark ‘released safely and quickly.’
‘By no means was [I] targeting that white,’ Sudal said. ‘You can’t control what picks up your bait.’
White sharks are a prohibited species in most US waters, meaning that they cannot be caught and retained, according to NOAA Fisheries.
Sudal revealed that the massive creature took about 300 yards of line off his spinning reel.
‘We immediately could tell it was something big,’ he told the Boston Globe on Wednesday.
However, the fisherman admitted that he did not immediately recognize the animal he had hooked.
Great white sharks cannot be caught and retained because they are a prohibited species in most US waters (File photo of a great white swimming)
‘We didn’t know what it was but then I saw one of its pectoral fins flipped up real quick and it was black and white spots,’ Sudal told the outlet.
‘I just know that’s not what I’m normally catching.’
White sharks are about four feet long when they are born and can grow up to roughly 20 feet while weighing more than 4,000 pounds.
Sudal called his weekend capture as ‘amazing’ as he marveled over the aquatic creature.
‘Its whole head is so much broader and its jaws are huge,’ Sudal said. ‘You can just tell it’s made to eat big prey and mammals and things like that.’
He revealed that a 14-year-old local teen, Stone Fornes, had helped him drag in the great white shark.
‘He’s just a really smart kid, is obsessed with fishing, and now he’s catching great whites,’ Sudal sad. ‘I was the exact same way. Obsessed.’
Cape Cod, where Nantucket is located, is home to one of the largest great white shark populations in the entire world during the summer months, according to the Nantucket Current.
The Daily Mail has reached out to Sudal and the Massachusetts Division of Marine Fisheries for comment.
