A Kangaroo Island fisherman shocked witnesses as he wrangled a bronze whaler shark mistakenly hooked on a line before dragging it back to the water and going for a brief swim with it in the ocean.
Video captured earlier this year shows South Australian man Tristan Turner pulling the tail of the 3m shark, then removing a fishing hook from its mouth as it writhes on a boat ramp.
WATCH THE VIDEO ABOVE: SA man stuns onlookers by wrestling then diving in with shark.
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His two sons were then stunned as their dad dragged the shark off the ramp and dived into the water alongside it.
Turner said his children were fishing from the island’s American River Jetty when they hooked the shark.
“We needed to get the hook out and let it go, so I just swam it around to the boat ramp off the rocks, got the hook out of it and got it back swimming again,” he said.
“I horrified my son when I swam off with it, he was a bit scared, but they’re a pretty friendly species of shark.”
Bronze whalers are typically found close to the shore and not often connected to shark attacks.
They feed on salmon and squid in deep waters and are not considered an endangered species.
Turner said it was always his dream to be able to swim with a shark in the wild.
“I had the opportunity when I let it go, hung on to its fin and went for a ride,” he said.
But Turner is no stranger to dealing with huge animals in the water.
He once wrangled crocodiles on his friend’s property in the Northern Territory, removing them when they became trapped in waters surrounding the station.
He said his dad was convinced he wouldn’t come home alive.
“We spent seven years up there then decided to come home so I made it through,” Turner joked.
