A 10-year-old’s close encounter with a mako shark in the Hauraki Gulf proved so exciting the only words the fisherman could think of were unfit for print unless censored.
“Holy sh*t, that’s a f***ing big mako.”
So said Taj Chapples, caught on video showing him and his family’s trip off Kawau Island last Wednesday and the menacing shark circling their boat.
“My son’s language in context is so very much appropriate as it was one very large shark,” his mother Wendy Ballard said.
The young man recounted his experience to the Herald, saying he was first to notice the mako approach the boat from behind before yelling, “Shark, shark!”
The brief video shows the shark, which Taj estimated would have been 15 feet long, swimming just below the surface - the latest sighting the Herald has reported on over the summer so far.
The shark continued circling for about half an hour, Taj’s mother said, likely spurred on after her husband Theo Chapples threw some leftover bait into the water.
It wasn’t Taj’s first shark encounter, but certainly his first with one this big.
He once hooked a mako off of Milford Beach, “but it was a lot smaller, this one was huge and I think its mouth was open too, which was quite scary”, his mother said.
“We were quite keen to get out of there after that.”
Taj didn’t leave empty-handed, managing to catch a snapper just shy of 70cm, which he entered into a competition with the Mairangi Bay Fishing Club.
He got his snapper filleted by Kaiika at the Westhaven Marina. Kaiika takes the fish heads, skeletons, and skin to give to families in need in the interest of sustainable fishing.
“Nothing goes to waste. What they [Kaiika] are doing with it is really quite cool. Then we usually donate everything else to friends and family down the way. Our fishing trips are all about sustainable fishing,” his mother said.
Taj has a burgeoning following for his fishing adventures, with his own social media pages chronicling some of the five years he has already spent of his young life out on the water.
The video in which he exclaimed what his mother called “all the right words to explain a huge shark” has even been spotted by one of his teachers, who gave him some feedback.
“Taj, your language is getting colourful! And yes, I would say the same about that mako. Excellent use of exclamations,” his teacher said.
A spate of shark sightings and encounters have already made headlines this summer, including one incident in which a 21-year-old woman was attacked in Southland and a panic in Auckland when swimmers were urged out of the water with a shark nearby.
Lifeguards recorded more than 40 first-hand sightings of sharks across two regions in a fortnight, Surf Life Saving New Zealand said last Tuesday.
Marine scientist Riley Elliott told RNZ the El Nino weather system could be behind the sightings, as the climate shift meant warm, fish-rich waters were just now coming into shore, and with it, more sharks.
“This summer is quite different to last summer in that it’s cooler water, the ocean’s a little bit slower behind in its productivity because of the shift to El Nino,” Elliott said.
“We are starting to see that warm productive water come in, more and more fish coming in closer to shore, and with that, shark sightings.”
Elliot said it was worth nothing that while warmer, productive water was more inviting to sharks, there were also more people around beaches through summer to see them.
The mother of the 21-year-old who was attacked in an estuary at Riverton, Southland on December 16 last year told the Herald her daughter remained in hospital, “slowly” recovering from surgery.
Raphael Franks is an Auckland-based reporter who covers breaking news. He joined the Herald as a Te Rito cadet in 2022.
