KEEN fisherman Denis Rivers used to let his kids swim and play in the Hastings River on the NSW mid-north coast.

Not any more. Not since landing a 3m bull shark estimated to weigh more than 250kg, about 5km from the river’s mouth.

The monster specimen was hooked on a solo night-time fishing expedition last week, using a chunk of freshwater eel as bait.

media_camera The scene of the catch.

“When it took the bait I just thought it was an average shark, because that’s what I was after,” Mr Rivers said.

“But once I set the hook onto it and it took off I knew it was a big one.”

“It nearly spooled me four times — it was taking 400m of line in one run. It took me an hour to get it to the rocks and then I yelled out to a fella who was camping up the road and he came down to try to give me a hand but we couldn’t budge it.”

Stuck literally between a rock and a hard place, Mr Rivers phoned a friend to bring his vehicle down to tow it up a nearby boat ramp onto shore. But neither the mate nor the camper were prepared to attach the tow strap to the shark’s tail, leaving Mr Rivers to do the honours himself. “It was a bit daunting,” he said.

media_camera The huge 250kg bull shark was caught near Port Macquarie.

“I had old mate hanging onto the trace, pulling it in the other direction so if it wouldn’t bite me and I just did it as quick as I could.” Once ashore, the group snapped a few photos before sliding the shark back into the water for release.

“I jumped in with it again and swam it. It took a while to get going but it swam off all good.” Mr Rivers said he had caught at least one bull shark in the river each time he’d gone fishing since starting to fish for sharks recreationally. “There are always people up in that spot on jetskis and behind a boat and all that,” he said.

“My kids have gone up there pumping yabbies and splashing around in the water too, but they won’t be any more.”

A bodyboarder was attacked by a white pointer in the same area in August and survived to tell his story.

Mr Carr described how he managed to “get the shark to let go” and paddle 200m back to shore before collapsing.

Southern Cross University shark researcher Dr Daniel Bucher said bull sharks were one of the few dangerous shark species known to commonly venture a long way up estuaries.

That was because of their high tolerance to freshwater.

They could be found frequently a long way upstream in rivers from Sydney to the Queensland border and beyond, he said.

“There are no other big predators of freshwater fish, so if you’re able to move up and feed in an area where no other predators can move, then you’ve got a competitive advantage with the food source.”

“That’s probably the evolutionary explanation — to exploit food resources that other sharks can’t.”

media_camera Denis Rivers poses with the monster shark he caught near the Hastings River.

media_camera The Hastings River regularly has bull sharks coming in from the sea.

Female bull sharks may also head upstream to give birth to their young, away from other potential predators.

Mr Rivers guessed that is what his specimen might have been doing before she took his bait.

“She was pretty fat in the belly so I reckon she might have been coming up the river to drop her pups,” he said.

According to the Australian Museum, bull sharks have been reported nearly 4000km from the sea in the Amazon River in South America.