A fisherman was shocked Saturday to find a great white shark swimming by his boat off the coast of New Jersey.
Jim Piazza and the Coast Guard Cape May Station posted footage of the large shark on Facebook. In the videos, the shark can be seen swimming very close to his boat.
The encounter with the shark occurred under a mile from the Jersey Shore near Sea Isle City, according to NJ.com. (RELATED: 880-Pound White Shark Seen On The East Coast)
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Piazza, a fisherman for years, has reportedly spotted and caught small sharks in the past, yet he said he’d “never seen anything like that” in reference to Saturday’s encounter, according to NJ.com. The shark was thought to be around 12 feet long and some 1,000 pounds, according to CBS News.
He said he was near the Townsend Inlet, an inlet by the southern portion of Sea Isle City, at the time, according to Fox 5 NY.
The U.S. Coast Guard came onboard to do a safety check shortly after the shark swam near the boat, and Piazza and others showed them video clips of it, according to NJ.com.
It is not uncommon for great white sharks to be near the Northeast coast, according to experts, CBS News reported. Great white sharks migrate in the area in the summer, according to the outlet.