LAKE Macquarie fisherman Clinton Bambach was flicking out a lure when a 300-kilogram predator with a fearsome reputation came by for a look.

The great white shark, still believed to be a juvenile despite being 2.5metres long, circled about 50 metres off a Murrays Beach jetty for an hour on Thursday morning before making two long sweeps within a metre of the fisherman, the second after another onlooker started patting the water.

‘‘It was doing loops and chasing baits,’’ Mr Bambach said of his encounter, which he caught on video. ‘‘A bloke saw how excited I was getting as I filmed so he came over and slapped the water and the thing wheeled around...You could have stepped on it, it came in so close, in just two foot of water.’’

The wharf is a favourite with children and in a patch of water also loved by skiers.

But it is known for bait fish and their predators, with a deep section of the lake between the jetty, Pulbah Island and Wangi Point.

Thursday’s close encounter has highlighted concerns about safety in the lake following a series of  similar incidents.

The  shark at Murrays Beach has been described by experts as  a juvenile. It was not likely to be a threat to swimmers and appeared to just be curious.

The video footage shows the shark in the shallows of the lake before it heads past the jetty, out to deeper water. Then as a man starts patting the water,  the shark becomes interested.

‘‘You see the shark notice the attraction and he has done a U-turn and started coming back to where the splash was coming from,’’ Mr Bambach said.

‘‘But then when it has got close enough to realise that it wasn’t prey, it wasn’t a food source it was used to eating, it has diverted itself and swum out a couple of feet from the splash and swum past it.

‘‘In my eyes, the shark has heard the splashing and come back to have a look at what was all the commotion, like a bait fish splashing the surface.

‘‘But when he saw the human hand, it wasn’t a food source so he didn’t aggressively tail kick and attack that food source.

‘‘Sharks are hungry and they will eat, but they won’t just eat a human hand because he sees it splashing.’’

Michael Ittensohn, a Murrays Beach resident who was near the jetty with his children later on Thursday, said his family regularly go down to the water, but they don’t swim, they only go up to their knees. 

However, Mr Ittensohn said his dog swims in the water there all the time, but he had never seen a shark in those waters. 

Corey Reid, who works at Fishermans Warehouse at Marks Point, observed what he believed to be the same shark feeding on mullet for about an hour on Wednesday in the same area.

‘‘It was a good-sized shark,’’ he said. ‘‘At first I thought, ‘That’s a big-arse hammerhead’, but then you could seen it wasn’t a hammer, it was a white. You could tell with the mullet around,  it was active[ly] working.’’

Jason Nunn, who owns Fishermans Warehouse, said  the  great white had been sighted regularly in the lake over the past couple of months.

‘‘We were talking about it on Saturday about how there hadn’t been any sightings for a while,’’ Mr Nunn said.

‘‘But I was thinking he hasn’t gone anywhere. There’s been a lot of jewfish in the lake the last month or so and he would have been just chomping on those boys.

‘‘But as it gets a little tougher,  he will surface, and with all the mullet, when they school up,  they are easier to target. Down along Cams Wharf,  there has been a lot of mullet and they’ve obviously got this shark’s attention.

‘‘They are commonly seen down there at this time of year.’’

Mr Nunn was also in no doubt, after seeing the video footage, that the fish was in hunting mode.

‘‘The shark is pumping. Normally the footage you get shows them just meandering round, but this guy is in hunt mode – its tail and dorsal fin were out of the water quite clearly,’’ Mr Nunn said.

‘‘I reckon if you jumped in and started swimming at that moment, you’d have got nailed.’’

Mr Bambach said he watched  the shark  chasing bait fish for about an hour after it swam off from the jetty.

‘‘We had bait fish splashing around and seagulls dive-bombing him, so he was obviously chasing the bait fish that was coming into the shallows,’’ Mr Bambach said. ‘‘It was just an amazing sight.’’

By DAN PROUDMANand MATTHEW KELLY

THE man who captured  on video his amazing interaction with the great white shark at Murrays Beach said he was torn between alerting the general public and the well-being of the predator.

Fisherman Clinton Bambach said he feared there could be sections of the community who would wish the shark removed or killed and  others may  try to catch it themselves.

‘‘I would feel like I have done the wrong thing by the shark by opening my mouth and telling people it is there, if it’s going to get killed off for feeding,’’ Mr Bambach said. ‘‘But if someone gets taken and I didn’t say anything about it, and I knew and I’ve got footage of it being in that water, I would feel bad.

‘‘Being a fishermen myself and a lover of all creatures, I don’t want this shark to get injured just because it is feeding, it is just doing its thing.’’

Mr Bambach, who has been fishing Lake Macquarie since he was a child, said the water was the domain of sea creatures and humans needed to respect it.

He said sharks had called the lake home for years. He could not recall ever hearing of an attack on a human.

‘‘The shark may have been swimming there for God knows how many years past people, and never been spotted,’’ he said.

CSIRO great white shark researcher Barry Bruce said the shark appeared to be a juvenile, probably about 2.5metres long. He said, based on the vision he had seen, the shark was 

healthy and simply curious about its surroundings.

‘‘It certainly wasn’t behaving aggressively,’’ he said. ‘‘It’s not unusual to see great whites in the shallows; we often see them in the surf zone at this time of year.’’

What was unusual was  that it was seen inside a coastal estuary.

‘‘I think the people who witnessed it were incredibly lucky,’’ Dr Bruce said.

Great whites are protected. The maximum penalty for catching one  is a $22,000 fine and/or two years’ jail.

‘‘They are protected for a reason,’’ Dr Bruce said. ‘‘This shark was minding its own business and should be left alone.’’