‘I grabbed the shark by the tail’
Cape Cod fishermen free great white shark
A Cape Cod fisherman forever can say he touched a great white shark after a 6.5-footer recently attacked his buoy and then needed his help after getting wrapped up in the line.
Nick Queenan was out with his father catching conch in Nantucket Sound’s Horseshoe Shoal when they noticed thrashing in the distance.
They made their way over to the commotion, and saw that a juvenile great white shark had gone after one of their buoys — and gotten its tail wrapped up in the line. It was stuck.
“I’ve seen sharks out there before, but I’ve never heard of a shark attacking a buoy like that,” said Queenan, who has been a fisherman for 16 years.
Queenan and his father Jay then worked together to free the entangled shark. Queenan grabbed the shark’s tail, and his father cut the line — helping the shark get loose and swim away.
“I grabbed the shark by the tail,” Queenan said. “It was the first time I ever touched a white shark.”
He wasn’t afraid being up close to a great white, he added.
“I knew we could handle it,” Queenan said. “Great whites and makos are capable of bursts of speed that can get them up out of the water in no time, but with its tail wrapped up in the line, that took away its propulsion.
“If the line was wrapped around its pectorals, that could make it more difficult,” he added. “The tail could thrash more, and it could end up in the boat if you’re not careful.”
The shark afterwards “seemed a bit loopy,” possibly exhausted from thrashing around a lot, Queenan said.
But then the shark righted itself back up and swam away.
Queenan’s best advice for people when it comes to this type of shark interaction is to “stay calm” and “approach with extreme caution.”
“Because you absolutely could hurt the shark or could hurt yourself, too,” he said. “They’re a very powerful animal even at that size.”
John Chisholm with the New England Aquarium said he receives reports from Canada to Maine and Massachusetts of white sharks biting buoys.
“We’ve even had a couple bite our receiver buoys over the years,” said Chisholm, an adjunct scientist in the Fisheries Science and Emerging Technologies program in the Aquarium’s Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life.
He tells people to report encounters like this one. People who have shark encounters can email him at MassSharks@gmail.com.