Fishermen reel in a huge shark only to discover it had been half eaten

Two fishermen reeled in a "find of a lifetime" in form of a rare shark that had been half-eaten.

Shaun Whale and Sammy Hitzke soon realised they had caught the monster shark when they spent almost 5 hours tackling the catch. When they managed to bring the shark up to the boat, they were stunned to see it had already been another shark's dinner with a gigantic chunk missing from its body.

The two Aussies can be heard discussing their "epic" find in their viral YouTube clip.

"There he is. It's big and long," one said.

"It's a shark. It looks like the shark has been sharked. I don't know what's going on there. It's a massive Thresher."

Sammy added: "This is epic, proper epic. He's got three-quarters of himself missing. That is a proper monster of the deep."

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They later explained how unusual their find was.

"I'm absolutely exhausted but this might be the craziest thing I've ever seen in the ocean,

"I've done a lot of fishing, spent a lot of time out on the big blue and not once did I think I'd find a thresher shark eaten by something, that I imagine was absolutely massive.

"This is a true predator of the depths - Now he's just food for another shark.

"That is a find of a lifetime."

There's always a BIGGER FISH! Deep water fishing gets crazy!www.youtube.com

The pair learnt they had picked up a thresher shark, a species that has been listed as vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union since 2007.

Unfortunately, all three thresher species fall victim to people hunting for their skin, livers, and meat. Their fins are often used in shark-fin soup.

A thresher shark prefers cooler temperatures but can be found worldwide in tropical waters. Despite a shark's notorious reputation, a thresher is said to be scared of humans and will often swim away from deep-sea divers.

They are far from harmful and will cause minimal damage to humans due to their small teeth and timidness.

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