BIGGER BOAT

6-Year-Old Catches Great White Shark

This fishing trip went from relaxing to ‘Jaws’ really quickly.

The White family was just trying to relax and catch some bass, when they suddenly started living a scene from Jaws.

Lars and Niccole White were fishing with their kids and Lars’ parents in Cape Cod Bay on June 9 when their 6-year-old son, Blake, asked his dad to help in reel in a heavy catch.

“I saw the line moving like crazy and so I told dad to go and get the rod,” 6-year-old Blake told The Cape Cod Times Monday, “And I helped him and I said, ‘Um, Dad, I think this is going to be a little too heavy, you can have it now.’”

When Lars took the pole, his response was simple.

“We're going to need a bigger boat.”

Lars quickly realized that whatever they had hooked was too heavy to reel in, so they decided to move the boat to follow the fish. After following the catch for an hour and a half, the fish finally surfaced — at which point Lars saw that they had just caught a great white shark.

“I was thinking it was a giant tuna,” said Blake in a video interview.

Blake and his 8-year-old brother Pierce were reportedly excited when they saw the 10-12 foot long shark, but made sure to stay far away from it at the center of the boat.

After Niccole took some pictures of the beast, the family cut the line and let it go. Scientists at the Atlantic Great White Shark Conservancy, a nonprofit that researches the sharks off Cape Cod, confirmed that the shark in the photograph provided by the Whites was indeed a great white.

Blake says that next time he goes fishing, he’s hoping to catch something smaller.

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Peter Slattery

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