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Amazing Animals

Spear Fisherman Fights Off Shark Attack to Escape With Bitten Foot and Broken Toes

Fisherman fends off shark, but not before the predator managed to break a few bones...

We don’t know too much about spear-hunting for fish, mainly due to the inventions of, err… Tesco and Sainsbury’s. But we’ve always imagined it to be a fairly meditative experience.

When we think of spear fishermen, we imagine a couple of dudes on the banks of a river sourcing out salmon in the clear water beneath, with eagles flying overhead, a campfire warming the fresh air behind and a guy with a banjo playing some comfortable if repetitive music which wouldn’t be out of place in an elevator.

In reality, it turns out spear fishing is less like a weekend retreat and a lot more like a first-person RPG. It’s really just diving but with a spear gun and a bit more malice, and there are sharks – sharks that try and eat you and shit.

See the problem with spear fishing is that once you’ve caught a fish, you have to strap it to your waistband or equivalent in order to keep going, but swimming about the ocean with a bunch of bleeding fish duct taped to your hips is inevitably going to attract a few predators.

It certainly did for 22 year old college student Tyler McQuillen, who recorded the crazy video below which shows his run in with a shark. Thankfully Tyler got out with just a bitten foot, two broken toes and some lost gear, but it could’ve been so much worse.

“I was diving off the coast of Santa Barbara at Refugio Point when I was hit in the back,” McQuillen said.” I thought it was my friends playing a joke on me.

“I lost grip of my speargun which I quickly retrieved and then it hit me. A huge great white which was at least 12ft long attacked me from the left side. It quickly circled around me and I used my spear gun to keep it away.”

Skip to 1:15 in the video below to see the shark close in on McQuillen and go in for the kill. This is some serious footage!

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