{"id":487139,"date":"2026-06-11T07:13:12","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T07:13:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/487139\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T07:13:12","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T07:13:12","slug":"video-captures-fisherman-landing-great-white-shark-off-nantucket-i-was-hugging-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/487139\/","title":{"rendered":"Video captures fisherman landing great white shark off Nantucket: “I was hugging it”"},"content":{"rendered":"

A fisherman who has spent years catching, tagging and researching sharks off of Nantucket, Massachusetts, got the surprise of a lifetime Sunday when video captured him reeling in his first great white shark.\u00a0<\/p>\n

“I was excited and stressed,” the fisherman, Elliot Sudal, said. He told WBZ-TV the shark was between eight and a half and nine feet long and weighed around 300 pounds.<\/p>\n

“I mean, it was just crazy,” he said. “I was hugging it.”<\/p>\n

\"Great<\/p>\n

Fisherman Elliot Sudal reeled in a great white shark on Nantucket.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Bryner Oliveira<\/p>\n

Although Sudal said he has extensive experience handling sharks, he described the moment as surreal.<\/p>\n

“On Nantucket specifically, I have caught over 1,000 sandbar, brown sharks and then hundreds of dusky sharks,” he\u00a0said. “That was the first great white.”<\/p>\n

Because great white sharks are a protected species, Sudal said his focus quickly shifted from the excitement of the catch to safely returning the animal back to the ocean. \u00a0<\/p>\n

“It’s cool, but it’s a responsibility,” he said. “There’s 50 people with cameras around and it is a protected species, and they are endangered.”\u00a0<\/p>\n

With help from his crew, Sudal said the shark was unhooked and released into the water in about 15 seconds.<\/p>\n

“You can’t pick what picks up your bait,” he said. “Yes, this happened, and I felt like I handled the situation correctly.”<\/p>\n

\n More from CBS News\n <\/p>\n

In:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A fisherman who has spent years catching, tagging and researching sharks off of Nantucket, Massachusetts, got the surprise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":487140,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[6877,85,46,225305,141,386],"class_list":["post-487139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-great-white-shark","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-nantucket-news","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487139","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=487139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/487139\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/487140"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=487139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=487139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=487139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}