Creature record / 1918
January 1918. The crayfish men of Port Stephens were working their deep-water grounds near Broughton Island, lifting and re-baiting their pots. Then an immense shark appeared. It was ghostly white. The water boiled over a large space as it passed. It took pot after pot, mooring lines and all. One crewman said it was three hundred feet long at least. Others said it was as long as the wharf they stood on, about 115 feet. The men pulled up their anchors and ran for port. For several days they refused to go back to sea. Naturalist David George Stead questioned them on the wharf at Nelson Bay. Their story has been argued over ever since.
Port Stephens, New South Wales. January 1918. The "outside" crayfish men worked deep-water grounds near Broughton Island. Their pots were about 3 feet 6 inches across, each often holding two to three dozen large crayfish. These were practical men. David George Stead, a naturalist and state fisheries official, called them "prosaic and rather stolid men, not given to 'fish stories'."