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RAW VIDEO: Great White Shark Bites Fishing Line off Cape Cod

A fishing boat had an exciting - and slightly scary - encounter with a great white shark off Cape Cod on Thursday.

Triton Sportfishing posted a video to its Facebook page of a great white attacking a striped bass on a fishing line during a private fishing excursion.

The incident happened Thursday morning in Cape Cod Bay, said Capt. Steve Peters of Triton Sportfishing, which operates two boats - Triton and Unchained - out of Rock Harbor in Orleans. He said it was the third time this summer he's seen a great white.

"We were bringing fish into the boat," Peters said. "All of a sudden it was airborne, down on top of the fish. It had it in his mouth and started to run off with it, then came back at it again."

He said he had his first mate grab the rod just in case and grabbed his phone to shoot video of the shark, which he estimated at about 12 feet long.

"It was kind of an action packed event. It came up and grabbed the fish again and was swimming toward the boat and let go of it," Peters said. "He just kept coming up. They don't have any fear of anything.

"It was really neat that it happened so close you could actually see it. Usually it's spur of the moment."

The encounter was just one of three great white shark sightings off Cape Cod on Thursday. The Atlantic White Shark Conservancy's research team also spotted sharks off Provincetown and Orleans.

More Great White Sharks Spotted Off Cape Cod

In the past week alone, there have now been 15 shark sightings off the Cape, according to the Sharktivity app.

Typically, mid-June is when most great white sharks arrive in the New England area. Last year was a particularly active year for great whites off Cape Cod, with dozens of sightings and several beach closures due to sharks being spotted swimming close to shore.

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