An Auckland man has captured amazing footage of an extremely acrobatic shark.
Nick Grace and his brother-in-law Todd Hughes were fishing for snapper off the coast of Hahei, when a Mako shark leapt out of the water in front of them.
"There was a big boil up of kahawai, and it just came straight up from the middle of it," Mr Grace told Newshub.
Mr Grace says that the shark had latched on to the pilchard that his brother in law had lowered in to the water to catch snapper.
"[The bait] was in about 60 metres of water, and he grabbed it and just went berserk."
The footage of the encounter shows the shark leaping out of the water three times, but Mr Grace says that, before the camera started rolling, the shark had been even closer.
"Before I got the go-pro going it did two pretty big jumps at the boat - luckily it didn't come in, 'cause there wouldn't have been room for all of us."
Not deterred by the close proximity of the shark, Mr Todd and Mr Hughes did attempt to follow the shark in their boat, but gave up the chase soon after.
"[We realised] it wasn't a great idea, because obviously they do jump."
Mr Grace says that he has been fishing for upwards of 20 years, and Mr Hughes even longer, but says that neither of them have ever seen anything like this in their lives.
Newshub.
