iStockphoto / Howard Chen
A kayak fisherman who was fishing less than 2 miles off the shores of Oahu was suddenly ambushed and attacked by a tiger shark.
He was filming at the time with a camera (GoPro?) on his head and captured the stunning tiger shark attack on video. Thankfully, he made it out of there okay after the tiger shark grabbed his paddle and grew tired of biting into hard plastic.
The video immediately went viral on TikTok where it has been seen about 900K times in under 24 hours. It has also taken off on YouTube where it was shared by Hawaii Nearshore Fishing:
On YouTube, the video’s description says the fisherman “heard a ‘whooshing’ sound, looked up and saw a wide brown thing on the side of the kayak.”
He says at first he thought it was a sea turtle but it rushed the kayak so fast he quickly realized it was a tiger shark.
The fisherman says he didn’t even realize that he took his left foot out of the water in order to brace for the impact of the shark hitting the kayak. And looking at the footage, he actually used that left foot to push the shark away.
I simply cannot imagine the levels of adrenaline coursing through his veins as he was paddling back to shore after that encounter. It would’ve been hard to hold onto the paddle with his heart beating that hard and fast.
@tomgeorgetv A fisherman on his kayak shares his story after his GoPro captured a shark attack in waters off Kualoa #hawaii #hinews #shark #sharkattack #oahu #hawaiitiktok #news #tvnews #fyp #foryou #gopro #viral
The commenters on YouTube were stunned, they wrote:
“Amazing how fast that attack was initiated. No time to do anything but panic. Glad you were ok brah!”
“I’m so glad that you are okay. I literally screamed when it attacked you. I probably would have passed out and my body found somewhere in the deep blue.”
“Holy!! I almost lost control of my body and I wasn’t on that kayak!!🦈 shocked the kayak didn’t capsized. Glad the guy’s ok.”
Let this video of the tiger shark attack serve as a reminder to always keep your head on a swivel when you’re kayak fishing. You never know what’s lurking underneath and it’s always better to be safe than sorry.