Great White Fight: Fishermen Fend Off Shark

Two spear fishermen have managed to fend off a great white shark when it confronted them off Western Australia.

Nathan Podmore and his friend Dave Richards were 50 metres from their boat when the Great White started circling them, near Geraldton, north of Perth.

Luckily they managed to scare if off after prodding it in the gills with their spears.

In amateur footage of the incident posted on YouTube, Mr Podmore describes how he gave the shark a "good whack" to fight it off.

"It came straight at us, it looked like a torpedo, it was massive," he said.

Last week, a surfer was killed by a great white near Wedge Island, just south of where the fishermen's close encounter happened.

Benjamin Linden, 24, was bitten in two in the attack , which reignited the debate over whether great whites should remain a protected species.

Mr Linden's death was the fifth such fatality in the region in less than a year.