Jaw dropping video footage shows the moment a nine-year-old boy pulled a colossal shark from the ocean.
Xandré de Beer was fishing with his dad Xander, 35, when he hooked the 23st shark in Western Cape, South Africa.
The budding fisher then entered into a two and a half hour tussle with the beast after bringing it out of the water to reveal its enormous size.
His dad left the youngster to manage the situation for himself with the bronze whaler shark attached to the end of his line.
The astonishing display went viral on TikTok after a video emerged of the impressive catch.
"At first I didn’t want him to target such a large shark as I didn’t think he was physically capable yet but he persisted that he wants to give it a try," Xander told NeedToKnow.online.
"I’ve told him in the past if he hooks a large fish that he needs to bring it in on his own and that he cannot hand the rod over to me to help as these sharks are extremely strong fighters and don’t give up easily.
"The only assistance I gave him is some advice during the tussle as how to hold his body position to use his body weight to counter the strong bursts of the shark.
"He stayed focused and, with some words of advice from me, he managed to conserve enough energy to endure the 2.5 hour tussle and finally landed a 149kg specimen.
"Finally he was completely tired, but even more satisfied with his catch."
Xandré and his dad, who has his own fishing guide and runs a charter company, measured and tagged the shark before safely releasing it.
The tag provides valuable information of their growth and movements.
Amazingly, this was not the first shark the child had caught, as he has previously hooked ragged tooth sharks.
Though this species is known to be less strong than the bronze whaler.
On the day of his biggest catch yet, Xandré had caught an 12.5st shark which he landed within 40 minutes, before setting his sights on the larger one.
Xander, who shares his fishing exploits on his YouTube channel Zoo Look Fishing, said: "Xandré started to go fishing with me since he was still in his diapers and caught his first little fish before he was two.
"So he grew up with fishing but has been very actively fishing with me since he was three years and a bit.
"He has caught other 100kg sharks, but ragged tooth sharks and they are not nearly as strong as these bronze whalers.
"Afterwards he told me he could see why I didn’t want him to try and catch one because you cannot compare the ragged tooth sharks he has caught before with the bronze whalers."
Xander shared a clip of his son’s impressive catch on TikTok where the post went viral being viewed nearly 90,000 times and racking up more than 3,000 likes.
One user commented: "So much respect for that boy his really coming into his own with his fishing.... going to go far in the sport. Keep up the good work."
"This is so awesome, I can only imagine the stories he tells his friends. Good job lil man," another viewer said.
Someone else added: "Wow this is insane."
One person agreed "this is way too cool" while another said "Wow but NOPE!"
