A DISTURBING video has emerged showing a 5.4 metre great white shark chasing a fishing boat, reportedly just off one of Australia's busiest beaches.

The video showed the shark emerging alongside a boat just out from Sydney's Bondi Beach, snatching a small blue shark the fishermen were reeling in.



The shocked fisherman watched on as the great white proceeded to devour the smaller shark which had latched on to the fishermen’s line .



At one point it even looked like the fishermen would get pulled over the side of the boat.



Fisherman Henry Minter told news.com.au that he’d never witnessed anything like it in all his years of fishing in those waters.



"We work and fish on the harbour every day," Mr Minter said.



"It was on a 32 foot boat so the shark must have been at least 18 feet."



The video shows that the fishermen were more excited than scared. In an ill-advised, "don’t try this at home" moment, the fishermen took turns trying to touch it as it lunged towards the boat



"We all had turns touching its nose," he said.



Though the close encounter occurred last year, the footage only surfaced on YouTube ten days ago.



A spokesman for the NSW Department of Primary Industries and Fisheries told News.com.au an expert who viewed the footage had confirmed it was a great white shark.



"The animal is a white shark, but without landmarks we can't confirm where this vision was taken,” a spokesperson for the department said.



"White sharks are along the NSW coast most of the year."



Waverley Council said it was not uncommon for sharks to be spotted around Bondi Beach.



"The situation is we share the water with the sharks and there's no getting away from that," the spokesman said.



"We run regular patrols along the beach and out further through the bay to make sure our swimmers are protected from any threat."

