The 41-year-old school teacher had taken to the water shortly after sunrise on Sunday morning with a friend.

"We launched through the surf and got behind the backline and I had my feet hanging over the boat like I usually do," he said.

"I was paddling with live bait on the line and the shark hit me from the side. It came up from the deep and I saw this flash on my left hand side," Machado added.

The fisherman said that in the blur of fins and white water, the shark tried to take a chunk out of his canoe.