Kayaker Matt Wells went on a solo fishing expedition near Cape Reinga in New Zealand, hoping to catch dinner, but a terrifying encounter with a Great White Shark proved he was nearly dinner. Matt posted a video of the encounter to his YouTube channel @nomadickayakfishing, and it’s truly terrifying. Matt, 19, told Stuff he noticed his lines moving.
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“My initial response was that there’s a kingfish trying to eat my live bait,” the kayaker said of the shark encounter. “So I swung my head around, turned the camera on, and by the time the camera was on, the swirl had kind of risen up to the surface, and the disturbance on the surface of the water was probably the length of two cars wide. I immediately thought that that’s not a fish. What’s going on here?”
The Kayaker Knew He Had To Get Away From The Shark
He told Stuff the animal followed him for a grueling eight minutes. “I know they are quite an inquisitive animal, but I was obviously a little bit nervous as it continued to follow me,” he recalled. “My head was on a swivel the whole time.”
His followers couldn’t believe how calm the kayaker was in the presence of a shark. “I was shouting at the screen, ‘Head for the shore’. In my mind, I was imagining scaling those cliffs in 30 seconds. But then you said how that might make you look like a seal and trigger an attack response. So then I’m shouting ‘stay away from the shore!!’. Honestly, that was like a movie.”
This person loved Matt’s response. “‘Please don’t attack me bro’…. To a Great White shark. possibly the most New Zealand thing ever said.”
Shark Scientist Riley Elliott told Stuff the kayaker did “all the right things”.
Riley explained, “When you’re panicking, you’re doing all the human nature kind of things. And he knew that that would be an adverse situation. So, instead, he stayed calm. He did calm paddle strokes, but in saying that, that meant he couldn’t get out of the situation very quickly. So it’s that balancing act which he did do so well.”
This story’s featured image is by karelnoppe via Shutterstock.
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