The Shark Bite on Peter Willoughby

I was visiting friends who were on holiday in Cape Vidal (Northern KZN, South Africa). I was there to show then some techniques and styles in dropshot fishing from the beach and from the boat. My friend and I were sponsored at that stage and had loads of tackle to demonstrate.

The Accident:
We had been out all day on a ski boat without a bite. The water was very dirty as there had been a lot of rain inland and the rivers were full. We had gone a long way out to sea and got nothing and the fishing from the beach was not much better.

We decided to leave the light tackle and try our luck for some big fish which might be lurcking closer in to shore as the water was very dirty. We also wanted to show them how to fish with heavy tackle from the beach as they are experts from the boat.

News had gone around the campsite that we were going to catch sharks from the beach and by the time late afternoon came round there was a small crowd on the beach. I was a little nervous but we had a bite on one of the roads with in 15min. I lost what must have been a sandshark or ray as there were no teeth marks on the bait, only scratch marks from the plates in the fish’s mouth. Not long after that we caught a Blackfin Shark of about 60kgs and another of around 20kgs.

I was now dark and we were keen for the braai back at the capsite and started packing up. Everyone had gone save one guy who wanted us to cast his sinker and slide his bait for him as he was new to the game and had never done it before. .. so we did and carried on packing up. As we were heading back up the beach the man’s wife run after us and said his real went “click”. We thought maybe the drag was a bit loose and so we went back to go check it and show him how tight it should be.

His rod was bending slightly and the real gave a few more clicks... We then knew there was something there and guessed it was a Raggie (Ragged Toothed Shark) as this was typical of their style of biting. My friend picked up the rod and tightened up the drag. We gave the rod to the man to fight his fish himself and we just told him what to do.

A raggie doesn’t fight like a Blackfin or Sandie, its more like trying to drag a parachute through the water. Sometimes taking a little line but mainly swimming up and down behind the waves.

I don’t believe in gaffing sharks and so we now grab them from the tail when they are in the shallows and drag them a little up the beach so one can take the hooks out and tag it quickly so that it can be released again.

So I was about 5m in and in about a foot of water watching where the line goes into the waves and my friend was helping the guy with fighting the shark. It took quite a long time but eventually I saw its fins in the water and went behind it and grabbed its tail.

When u do this u have to hold on tight!! I started dragging it out the water and was nearly out in about a half a foot when my friend shouted “WATER” as he had spotted a wave coming in. I looked around as the wave hit me so it caught me when I was not expecting it. The wave wasn’t big (about a foot or two) and knocked me over... partly because the sharked knocked me over as well. (I was dragging the shark from the sea towards the beach and the wave had knocked the shark towards me and so I fell backwards).

The shark could now just about swim again and I was now sitting in the water when suddenly I felt something hit my leg. I felt the shark’s mouth close on my leg and realized I was in trouble. Fortunately it didn’t bite down as it would have taken a big piece out of my leg if not bitten it off. I pushed it off my leg (Cutting my thumb on one of its teeth), stood up and ran out the water.

No one knew what happened and they continued to get the shark out the water so they could release it. I stood one side in the darkness and didn’t want to look at my leg. I figured it wasn’t too bad as there was not much pain.

While they were doing this I decided to look down and saw my calf had a big gash in it and looked a bit shredded. It looked a lot worse than it felt. I called my friend over and showed him and suddenly the people we were helping were panicking a bit.

It was quite a big shark, about 2meters from the nose to the base of the tail (around 150kgs) and realized I could have been a lot worse off than I was!

While they were releasing the shark again, one of the national parks board game drive cars came up the beach and I thought what luck, someone to take me back to camp. The car pulled up to see the shark on the beach as it was being dragged back into the water and I went to the ranger to ask him if he could drive me back to camp (only about 400m) He said sorry he can’t as the guests that were with him had paid money to see turtles!! Can u believe it??...

So my friend and I walked back up the beach while someone else ran back to camp to fetch a bakkie.

There was a vet in the campsite and he put some antiseptic on my leg and I took a whole bunch of pain killers. There was only a doc in the small town on St Lucia and he did the stitching work. The most painful part of the whole ordeal was at the end of the stitching when the doc said he can no longer give me any more local anaesthetic as I had reached my limit so the last few stitches were done in parts that I could feel. Anyway, it was pretty cool watching him sew arteries closed and stitch me up. It took a while as he did a whole bunch of internal stitches as well... about 75 stitches in total.

I don’t blame the shark for what happened... I see it as an accident and will continue to catch, tag and release these beautiful animals.