Beware of impaired judgment.

Mr Kerkhof’s adventure began when he’d had a few drinks, and decided to take a stroll on the Louth Bay jetty.

He was chatting to a couple of fishermen who were after a catch of squid when a 1.3 metre bronze whaler shark began chasing their squid lures.

With the shark keeping the squid away, and no means of removing the problem, Mr Kerkhof told ABC News that he decided he could help.

“I said to them, we’ll just see if we can lure it into the shallows a bit and I’ll jump in and grab him”, he said.

Mr Kerkhof explained how he stripped off his clothing, climbed down a ladder on the jetty and began to stalk the shark into shallow water, slowly sneaking up behind it.

This is a bronze whaler shark:

Credit Rob Hughes
And this is Phillip Kerkhof…

Credit ABC Online  One would think this would have turned out badly for Mr. Kerkhof. However, he actually managed to sneak up on the shark (how you “sneak up” on an aquatic predator, I’ll never know), catch it with his bare hands, climb up the ladder with shark in tow, and throw it onto the jetty. All while buck-naked and drunk on vodka.

“When I sobered up I thought about it and I said you know ‘I’m a bit of an idiot doing it’… it’s amazing what vodka does…”