Teenager Battles To Reel 13-Foot Tiger Shark To Shore, Gets Rod Snapped

A young fisherman was surprised to see that he caught a 13-foot tiger shark while shark fishing at the northern Western Australia town of Port Samson. The 19-year-old Kruz Mettner battled for more than three hours off Point Samson, near Dampier, to bring the shark to shore.

"When we first saw her tail, we thought we’d got something quite different and because most of the tigers have headed south this time of year," he told the West Australian. “It was me fighting with her all that time and the other two filming. The only time it was a team effort was the last bit when he pulled her onto the beach."

The young trade assistant, from the Pilbara region in the state's north, claimed he and his friends always release whatever they catch. Mettner, who posed with the massive tiger shark after bringing it to the shore, said he and his friends, Tom Knight and John Clark, enjoyed the thrill of wrestling the sharks into shore and always "tried" not to kill them.

“Before we let her go, we measured her at 4.1m. She was a big girl. The end of my rod ended up snapping off,” he said, adding that while they had planned to catch a large shark, they did not expect a tiger shark as it was not normally seen in the area this time of year.

Last week, Mettner reeled in a pregnant sawfish — currently listed as vulnerable under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act — laying across its body on the beach while he posed for a photo for social media.

"Sick night with Tom Knight and John Clark hooked a rare green saw fish she also gave birth as we were releasing her two baby saw fishies had their saw popin out and tom landed a good old lemon shark we pulled out six old hooks from his mouth," he wrote in a Facebook post Nov. 26.

While talking about his interests, Mettner said he would like to take on a formal role in finding out more about sharks.

“I’d love to talk to the Department of Fisheries about getting involved in some shark tagging up here,” he said. “Apart from great whites, we get all kinds of sharks up here.”