NJ fisherman faced great white shark all alone off Jersey Shore, recorded encounter

Travis Bogin has joined the relatively small fraternity of people that have had a chance encounter with a great white shark in the wild off the New Jersey coast.

The encounter happened Wednesday morning when Bogin, 39, who grew up in Toms River and now lives in Little Egg Harbor, was fishing on a wreck 12 miles off the shores of Atlantic City. He was out for thresher shark, a species with a long sickle-shaped tail used for stunning prey, when a small white shark came nosing around and bit one of his baits.

Of course, he didn't know what he had on the line at first. The shark took off but tired out quickly after about a 10-minute fight on rod and reel. When he got the shark to side of his 21-foot Proline fishing boat, he was a bit awestruck.

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"I was stunned and excited. I had all these thoughts going through my head because it's still just a rare thing to see one up that close," said Bogin, an avid recreational fisherman who was out by himself that day.

He said he didn't remove the shark from the water. He cut the wire leader down at the hook, released the shark and witnessed it swim off on its own power. He was using a rustable circle hook, a hook designed to catch the jaw or month of a fish and fall out on its own. In this case, the hook was in the corner of the shark's mouth. He estimated the shark to be 5? feet in length.

White sharks, one of the ocean's apex predators, are federally protected and fishing for them is prohibited. In recent years, fishermen off the Jersey Coast have been bumping into them more frequently, as the shark species that was once severely threatened due to overfishing has bounced back with the protections in place.

Massachusetts shark biologist Greg Skomal confirmed the shark was a juvenile white shark. It is one of the first white sharks spotted off the coast of New Jersey this season, though the their migration up the East Coast is in full swing.

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"A lot of the adults will keep going north to Massachusetts as they're looking for the seals and whales. The smaller ones will be fairly abundant during the summer from northern New Jersey to Rhode Island," Skomal said.

In the 1960s, biologist Jack Casey tagged several juvenile white sharks off the coast of Sandy Hook, concluding that New Jersey was a nursery ground for young white shark pups.

The resurgence of white sharks along the East Coast has been some cause for concern for beach safety, especially after a swimmer was fatally bitten six years ago off Cape Cod, followed by another fatality in Maine in 2020. In both incidents, a white shark was believed to be the shark.

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In New Jersey, the most recent shark bite incident was last May, when a 15-year old girl was bit on the foot while surfing in Stone Harbor and survived. The species of shark was never identified.

According to the International Shark Attack File Beach Injuries and Fatalities Report, the odds of a shark attack in the United States still remains low, at 1 in 11.5 million.

When Jersey Shore native Dan Radel is not reporting the news, you can find him in a college classroom where he is a history professor. Reach him @danielradelapp; 732-643-4072; [email protected].

This article originally appeared on Asbury Park Press: Great white shark encounter by NJ fisherman off Jersey Shore