Video captured a group’s close encounter with a 10-foot hammerhead shark on Sunday after the animal grabbed onto a fishing line off Huntington Beach’s coast.
Robert Wagner, owner of Wagner Charters, was fishing with a man and his daughter Sunday afternoon off the coast of Sunset Beach when the incident occurred, he said.
The group was about 2 miles from the shore, and in about 80 feet of water, when Wagner began using chum to try to bait yellowtail fish.
Rather than attract the fish, however, a hammerhead shark appeared. Wagner estimated it to be about 10 feet long.
“I didn’t expect him to actually take the line the way he did. I was trying to get my chum ball away from him for a little bit, but there was no stopping him. I mean, when he wanted something, he took it,” Wagner said.
Wagner recorded the incident as the group struggled with the shark for several seconds. The animal eventually set itself free.
The boat’s 14-year-old passenger Mylee Cosme said she was scared, but also a little excited during the ordeal.
