Freshwater sharks?
They exist, and a 16-year-old Georgian caught one in a stream north of Darien in McIntosh County, NBC's Today Show reports.
Noel Todd told the Today Show he was at a boat slip in Valona, an unincorporated area, when he saw two sharks in the fresh water.
He and a friend, Leon Howard, did what any Georgia fisherman would do ... they tried to catch them.
The boys got a shark hook and threw some bait in the water to encourage the sharks to get closer.
One did and the lads quickly landed a 368-pound, 8-foot, 5-inch Bull shark, among the deadliest fish in the sea ... or river.
Seeing sharks that close to a recreational area took Todd by surprise.
“There’s little kids that they learn how to swim with a lifejacket right in here,” he said on NBC. “Right where I caught the shark.”
As for why the sharks were there in the first place, Todd speculated to Channel 2 Action News that it could have been that the sharks were following shrimp boats as they were dumping "trash" fish into the water, and had just made themselves at home in Shell Creek.
Carolyn Belcher, a shark expert with the Coastal Resources Division of the Department of Natural Resources in Brunswick said she agreed with Todd’s assessment.
"We're aware that there are sharks out there. This is more common that most people would think," Belcher told Channel 2 Action News. "Usually, the sharks follow the fish in. And since smaller sharks have been displaced lately because of changing salinity in creeks, the larger sharks are moving in."
The bad news? The second shark got away and was much bigger, Todd said.
Bull sharks usually live in saltwater but have been known to spend time in rivers and streams. They are considered among the most dangerous sharks because they frequent shallow, freshwater where humans gather.
The species is believed to be responsible for four deaths along the New Jersey shore in 1916, which inspired the Peter Benchley novel "Jaws."
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