BILLERICA, Mass. — Elliot Sudal didn’t need a bigger boat, but he did need to find a way to get a hook out of a shark’s mouth.
Sudal, a veteran angler and boat captain, reeled in the nearly nine-foot shark — also commonly known as a great white shark or a great white — on June 7 while fishing from shore on Nantucket. White sharks are a protected species in the U.S. and must be released immediately when accidentally caught.
That presents a problem for a fisherman because the white shark is a formidable apex predator best known for the 1975 movie “Jaws,” in which Roy Scheider’s character utters the famous line “You’re gonna need a bigger boat” upon seeing the big fish. Sudal decided to use his encounter to demonstrate how to respond to such a situation.
Sudal posted a video of himself removing the hook to his social media accounts. In the video, Sudal climbs onto the back of the shark, secures the fish in the surf, and removes the hook from its mouth. By the end of the short video, the shark is back in the water.
The encounter occurred as great white sharks are increasingly spotted in the waters off Cape Cod and the islands, a trend researchers have linked to the growing population of gray seals, a primary food source for the sharks. White sharks are a protected species, and federal regulations require anglers to release any accidentally caught white shark immediately, with minimal harm to the animal.