Shark is pretty tasty, if you rinse the meat well (they ooze pee through their skin, or smth, instead of having a proper urethra), easily my favorite fish. I had a thick shark steak in Switzerland once, and it was very good. Firm, and not fishy tasting at all. That first guy had a gaff and everything ready at hand, if he'd of had a winch to hook it to he might have had a fat check coming. The big one that got away..., but at least he got away from it, and he got to keep the bait!

The second pic reminds of of the movie 'Waterworld', where Kevin Costner uses himself as bait on an explosive actuated gorge wider than he was tall to catch a predatory fish bigger than his whole boat. She lacks a gorge though, which means she came to the game unprepared. It also reminds me of being in a fourteen foot open skiff in Alaska when a pod of Orca surrounded us, and a big bull was eyeballing me so close I could have reached out and touched him. I didn't because I didn't have a gorge either, but I remember his eyeball was as big as my head (I was only 8 and my head didn't get too big for my neck until much later), and his dorsal fin was probably twice as tall as I was. So tall that at the tip it flopped over and hung back down a foot or two. Even then the fin was much taller than I was. We were seeing eye to eye for a couple minutes, until the channel we were navigating widened a bit and the pod moved away from the dangerous propeller of the outboard motor. I didn't feel fear then, for some reason, but I noticed we all started breathing again when they veered off as we entered Naquasina Bay. I think I'd have been feared enough to give that shark a snootful of shark repellent right down the leg of my shorts had I been in the position of the gal in the second pic.

Thanks!