David Freeman said he first tried to out swim the shark, not knowing why he was being pulled back. Turns out, the shark was attached to his line.
A spearfisher was forced to straddle a shark that managed to get tangled in his line - and he captured the whole experience on camera.
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David Freeman from Newport Beach, California told InsideEdition.com that he was spearfishing alone along the Southside of Oahu, Hawaii and was tying fish he had already caught to a stringer line attached to him.
"When I looked back, a shark was about five feet in the air, and I could see thrashing in the water underneath the shark," Freeman said. "I knew I had at least two sharks fighting to eat my fish."
A spearfisher for 8 years, he was familiar with encountering smaller, more docile sharks, but he wasn't quite prepared for this meeting.
In the video of the encounter, he said that he was armed with a speargun, but didn't want to shoot the shark. "The Hawaiians respect the shark," he said.
He then began swimming towards shallower reef to try to lose the shark. But he said he had "constant tension" from being pulled back by the reef shark, which had somehow tangled itself in one of his lines.
Freeman said he started recording the video about an hour into the battle as he and the shark began to tire out. They both took a moment to rest on the reef when Freeman realized this was his chance to unattach himself from the shark.
"I swam down and straddled the back of the shark, so it wouldn't decide to take a bite," Freeman told IE.com.
He undid the clip, and the shark swam off.
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When he got back to shore, he said he thought his girlfriend would be worried sick, but the only thing she asked him as she was still basking in the sun was: "Where are your fish?"
"I couldn't help but laugh. 'Babe, the sharks ate my fish,'" he responded.
