{"id":61286,"date":"2025-08-05T23:20:12","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T23:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/61286\/"},"modified":"2025-08-05T23:20:12","modified_gmt":"2025-08-05T23:20:12","slug":"milton-spearfisher-recounts-harrowing-encounter-with-8-foot-bull-shark-in-the-gulf","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/61286\/","title":{"rendered":"Milton spearfisher recounts harrowing encounter with 8-foot bull shark in the Gulf"},"content":{"rendered":"

MILTON, Fla. — A Milton man is recovering after being bitten by an 8-foot bull shark on Saturday<\/a>. He was spearfishing in the Gulf when it happened.<\/p>\n

Chance Armand spoke with WEAR News on Tuesday about the moment he saw the shark coming for him, and what happened next.<\/p>\n

“I just want to start with God is good, he 100% was looking after me,” Armand said. <\/p>\n

Armand says it’s not unusual to see sharks while he’s spearfishing. In fact, he enjoys it.<\/p>\n

“I love seeing sharks, I’ve always been the kid since I was young watching Shark Week, geeking out about it, and telling everybody, ‘I want to be a marine biologist,'” Armand said. <\/p>\n

He and his friends were about 20 miles out from Pensacola Pass. As they dove and fished, an 8-foot bull shark kept showing up.<\/p>\n

“They’ve obviously become accustomed to knowing boats and humans, and in this case, even the sound of a speargun going off, is associated with an easy meal,” Armand said. “This particular shark was the third time I saw it that day.”<\/p>\n

He kept the fish he’d just speared close to his body, hoping to prevent movement that would attract the shark. However, it didn’t work.<\/p>\n

“On my ascent, I looked down and saw the shark coming up from below,” Armand said. “In this case, he fully committed, and by the time I acknowledged he wasn\u2019t going to stop, all I could do was put my knee in between him and the fish that was on my chest.”<\/p>\n

The instinctive reaction protected his internal organs, but the shark got a sizeable bite out of his knee and thigh.<\/p>\n

“In the future, I’m definitely going to have a robust med kit on board,” Armand said. “We were able to fashion a makeshift tourniquet out of a t-shirt, a filet knife, and a speargun band.”<\/p>\n

He smiled for pictures on the boat ride back, thankful to be alive and determined to keep it in perspective.<\/p>\n

“He bit me, and I was just more frustrated than anything,” Armand said. “Honestly, I can say the worst part of it for me was losing my speargun.”<\/p>\n

It looks a little rough right now, but the injury hasn’t affected his ability or his desire to get back in the water.<\/p>\n

“I got stitched up and I’m hoping the wounds close in time for grouper season in September,” Armand said. <\/p>\n

Chance also talked about the increasing number of sharks in local fishing spots and what he thinks should be done. Watch his full interview with WEAR News here:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MILTON, Fla. — A Milton man is recovering after being bitten by an 8-foot bull shark on Saturday.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[24855,45615,45616,10156,45617,45614,79,8207,45613,201],"class_list":{"0":"post-61286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-bull-shark","9":"tag-chance-armand","10":"tag-gulf","11":"tag-injury","12":"tag-marine-biologist","13":"tag-pensacola","14":"tag-science","15":"tag-shark","16":"tag-spearfishing","17":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}