A great white shark leapt out of the water right next to a kayak fisherman after it had become caught on his line.

Rick Austin had unsuccessfully been out searching for striped bass in the Bay of Fundy, Canada, on July 30 when he was joined by an apex.

Heart-stopping footage shows the eight-foot-long apex predator’s shadow swim directly under the 61-year-old’s boat leaving him to shout ‘what the f**k was that’.

Just 20 seconds later the shark – which was caught on the end of Rick’s 10-metre-long line – jumped out of the water before crashing back down again.

Rick said: “My adrenaline was pumping like crazy. At no point did I think I’d hooked a shark. If I had known that, I wouldn’t have stayed around.

“It would explain why I didn’t have any luck catching anything that day. It would have chased them off.

“I’ve done a lot of shark fishing in my time and I’ve caught many blue sharks. However, I have never caught a great white.

“I’ve heard enough horror stories about them jumping into or ramming boats not to be comfortable sitting out there with one.

“Once it had landed back in the water, the shark swam directly back at me. It was definitely checking me out.”

Originally Rick – a fishing veteran of 50 years – believed he had hooked a dolphin but two biologists from the New England Aquarium and the Department of Integrative Biology from the University of Guelph confirmed it was a juvenile great white shark believed to weigh 250lbs.

As Rick only had 10 metres of line left on his rod, he cut it to allow the animal to swim off safely.

Rick said: “It was directly below me when I finally cut the line. It was so powerful that it was moving the weight of me, my kayak and all the gear with ease and we would have weighed 300lbs.

“If I hadn’t cut that line, I would have ended up 100 miles away before it got tired. That’s if nothing bad had happened and it didn’t try and charge me.

“I was only one kilometre offshore when the shark appeared. I could see people on the beach happily playing and swimming in the water.

“I had been out for four hours before it appeared. I had no luck catching the striped bass but did actually catch a mackerel.

“I was anchored because of the powerful tides in the Bay of Fundy. That actually makes it more dangerous when you catch a fish this big because it can easily flip you.

“At first I thought it was a porpoise or dolphin. It wasn’t until the next day when two biologists confirmed it was a great white shark.

“I just wanted to cut the line. Firstly to avoid being flipped but also because I didn’t want to harm the animal.

“I caught a live mackerel and used that as bait for the striped bass. I just dangled it below the kayak around 30ft deep.

“Only five minutes later, the reel on my line started clicking and clicking. Immediately the scene from Jaws came to my mind where the guy has to belt himself into his seat.”