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- A diver was spearfishing in Brazil when a lightning-fast reef shark came out of nowhere and went for the dead fish on the diver’s stringer
- The shark and diver then played tug-o-war over the rope filled with fish that was attached to the diver in an incredibly tense battle between shark and man
- Read more SHARKS articles here
Picture this: you are out diving with friends and having an epic day spearfishing. Your stringer (rope to hold the fish you’ve caught) is nearly full of fresh fish. Then out of nowhere a lightning-fast reef shark darts in and tries to eat those fish that are literally attached to your both.
To most people, that’s an absolutely nightmarish scenario. And to the diver in the video below who was spearfishing in Porto de Santo Antonio Noronha near the Fernando de Noronha archipelago near Brazil, according to Field and Stream, it was a real-life nightmare. Thankfully, the shark got what it wanted and the spearfishing outing didn’t end with a trip to the emergency room.
After wrestling one of the fish away from the spearfishing diver the shark was still frenzied and circled back to investigate the group of divers. But it’s fish the shark was after and all’s well that ends well, right? They certainly got some bone-chilling and awesome footage out of it along with an epic fishing story.
Diver Spearfishing Off Brazil Battles Shark In Tug-o-War Fight For Dead Fish
That kind of makes you rethinking going on the next spearfishing trip, doesn’t it?
How common is this when spearing fish?
Spearfishing with a stringer almost always exposes the diver to an encounter like this. Sharks can smell blood in the water from a quarter of a mile away. And if you are spearfishing a coral reef there’s a good chance there are sharks in the area.
One option is to swim back to the boat each time you shoot a fish but that’s time-consuming and laborious. Plus, you will likely miss a lot of great chances at prized fish if you are constantly swimming back and forth from the reef to the boat.
Another safety option is to have some sort of a ripcord mechanism where the diver can easily release the stringer of fish should a shark show up and try to swim away with the fish. You absolutely don’t want to find yourself in a scenario where you’re spearfishing and have bloody fish tied to your body and a shark trying to rip those fish away. Because when a shark gets frenzied it’s likely unable to discern between body parts and fresh fish.
What Kind Of Shark And Fish Were Those?
According to Field & Stream, the shark was an Atlantic Sharpnose Shark. They commonly found throughout the ‘subtropical waters of the northwestern Atlantic Ocean’ and typically range from Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula up to Maine as well as off the coasts of Central Brazil.
They typically max out at about 4-feet in length so this was definitely a full-grown specimen as it looked larger than 4 feet to me. And the fish from the spearfishing adventure were Coneys and Squirrelfish. The shark apparently made off with two coneys but the squirrelfish has sharp spines on its dorsal fin so the shark wasn’t able to get that one.
It did however circle back three times to attack the line of fish. And now I’m imagining the exhaustion of fighting off a shark not once, not twice, but three times and each time thinking you were in the clear just to have it come back for more. That must’ve been terrifying!
Here’s the description from Zenger‘s YouTube video:
“The person who appears in the video is Felipe Rogerio, resident and tour guide of Fernando de Noronha. He was fishing with another resident and friend, ‘Nego’. Both are authorised to fish in the archipelago. “The sharpnose shark appeared during fishing and I was following, capturing the images.
“The shark appeared and took two fish from the line and we didn’t do anything because they are protected animals on the island and we cannot interfere with their behaviour. “I took advantage of the situation to record the shark’s actions! “Besides this one, there were other sharks of the nurse shark species.”
This archipelago is apparently a popular spearfishing location and it’s located about 220 miles off Brazil so they were WAY out there. And the waters are protected so they actually weren’t able to prevent the shark from trying to eat the fish, all they could do while spearfishing was flip on the camera and record.