New York fishermen are going to need a bigger boat.
The third great white shark caught in a week was reeled in Thursday evening by a group of Queens-based fishermen just a few miles from Rockaway Beach.
Bobby Jahrnes ended a long work day with an evening fishing trip with his son and a few of his buddies. At about 6 p.m., they spotted a shark just a few miles from Rockaway Beach.
“My son brought it to the boat and we thought it was a blue shark,” said Jahrnes, who works as a carpenter when he’s not out fishing on his charter boat, Prime Reel Estate. “But when it came closer, we realized it wasn’t. The colors and the snout on it — it was definitely a great white.”
Jahrnes said this 80-pound sea giant was likely never caught before because it had no holes or hooks in it. As a third-generation fisherman, Jahrnes has seen a lot of sharks in his life.
“I’ve been shark fishing my entire life. You used to have to go out 40 miles to even catch a decent-sized shark,” he said. “But to go out for three hours and only be five miles off the beach and catch three different species of sharks — that tells me there’s a lot of sharks out there.”
The shark was in a similar location to Sunday’s catch, which the fisherman thinks is a spawning ground for them.
“There’s a big group of baby Jaws out there,” Jahrnes said, adding that they caught Baby Jaws No. 2 on Thursday not once but twice in the same evening.
It’s becoming more common to see sharks popping up in shallower waters next to boats and near beaches.
“Great whites are on the endangered species list — they’re the top of the food chain in the water,” Jahrnes said. “There’s nothing to kill them off. They’re going to fill the waters up and I think that’s why you’re seeing more close to shore.”
One of Jahrnes’ boat mates, Steve Fernandez, caught the baby great white on Sunday. Another great white shark bumped into a fishing boat 15 miles from Fire Island over the weekend. New Jersey fishermen off the coast of Cape May think they spotted a great white on Saturday, too.