A FALCON teenager fended off a grey nurse shark with his gidgee at Avalon Beach this afternoon.
Lucas Martin (14) was spearfishing with friends at about 5.30pm when he saw a black shadow racing towards him.
“I had just pulled a cod off my gidgee and it was racing at me,” Lucas said.
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“It came towards me face to face.
“I poked its nose with my gidgee and it swam away.
“I got a proper view as it left.”
Lucas thinks the shark took off to get his discarded fish.
Lucas quickly got onto the reef and called out “shark” to alert his friend’s father on the shore and a 12-year-old boy still in the water.
Everyone got out of the water without injury.
Lucas’s mother Lara used the BEN signage system to alert Water Police about where the incident occurred.
“It was hard to describe where we were, so I said the number,” she said.
Surf Life Saving WA were also notified.
The BEN system was installed last year to help beach users effectively describe where an incident occurred to emergency services. The initiative was in response to emergency response confusion over the location of a shark attack that killed Ben Gerring at Gearies surf break, Falcon in 2016.
Despite his close encounter with a shark, Lucas said he would still go spearfishing, just not in the same place.
He is also looking forward to telling his friends at Mandurah Catholic College about his close call, but he doubts they will believe him.