{"id":696499,"date":"2026-06-10T22:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696499\/"},"modified":"2026-06-10T22:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-10T22:31:10","slug":"nantucket-fisherman-reels-in-great-white-shark","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/696499\/","title":{"rendered":"Nantucket fisherman reels in great white shark"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cIt probably took 300 yards of line off my reel … we immediately could tell it was something big,\u201d Sudal said Wednesday, adding that he was fishing with a friend and a teenage boy under his tutelage. \u201cWe didn\u2019t know what it was but then I saw one of its pectoral fins flipped up real quick and it was black and white spots and I just know that\u2019s not what I\u2019m normally catching.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sudal, 37, said as soon as he realized he had caught a great white shark he knew he had to release it immediately. Great whites are a prohibited species in US waters, meaning no intentional targeting is allowed, Sudal said. <\/p>\n

He said he posted the video to show how to release the nearly 9-foot shark back into the water.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe shark was amazing. Its whole head is so much broader and its jaws are huge, you can just tell it\u2019s made to eat big prey and mammals and things like that,\u201d Sudal said. \u201dI\u2019ve caught thousands of sharks before. That\u2019s the only great white I\u2019ve ever caught.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sudal said he became known as Nantucket\u2019s \u201cshark wrestler\u201d after the Globe published an article about him in 2015<\/a>. Sudal first gained widespread attention in 2013 after a video of him battling a shark on Nantucket gathered millions of views. <\/p>\n

Shark Wrestler<\/p>\n

Elliot Sudal tests the effectiveness of land based shark fishing as a research and tagging method.<\/p>\n

From working on a fishing boat in Alaska at 18 to tagging sharks on yachts<\/a> in the Caribbean, Sudal said he has \u201ccaught everything cool in North America.\u201d <\/p>\n

Born and raised in Burlington, Conn., Sudal said he did not grow up on the coast but always had a fascination with sea life. <\/p>\n

\u201cI had a pond in my backyard growing up, and I was obsessed with fishing and just rode around on my bike and would catch fish from other ponds and put them in my pond,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

Now, decades later, Sudal is showing a local teenager the ropes. On Sunday, Stone Fornes, 14, helped Sudal reel in the great white. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s so funny. Everyone\u2019s been calling him my apprentice but I just started running a boat for their family here in Nantucket,\u201d Sudal said. \u201cAnd he\u2019s just a really smart kid, is obsessed with fishing, and now he\u2019s catching great whites. I was the exact same way. Obsessed.\u201d <\/p>\n

\"SudalSudal said it took the trio (Nate Skeritt, Stone Fornes, Elliot Sudal) nearly 25 minutes to reel the shark in.Courtesy of Elliot Sudal<\/p>\n

While great whites are rarer than other shark species, a sighting in June on Nantucket is a common occurrence, according to John Chisholm, a shark expert at the New England Aquarium. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhite sharks like to hang out right in the surf zone so when you go in the water you need to be aware,\u201d Chisholm said. \u201cSharks are not targeting humans, but in the case of white sharks that feed on seals, you know, that\u2019s a human-sized prey item.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sudal said that he has never been badly injured while dealing with a shark but has cut up his hands on their razor-sharp teeth a few times while pulling out the fishing hook. <\/p>\n

\u201cCatching a white shark, not many people do that. It\u2019s that man-versus-nature challenge, catching something on your own,\u201d Chisholm said. \u201cIt\u2019s not as easy as people think.\u201d <\/p>\n

Hannah Goeke can be reached at hannah.goeke@globe.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cIt probably took 300 yards of line off my reel … we immediately could tell it was something…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":696500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[79,201],"class_list":["post-696499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696499","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=696499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/696499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/696500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=696499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=696499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=696499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}