Aussie fishermen encounter Great White sharks at national tournament

Three Aussie fishermen had the "experience of a lifetime" while competing in the country's largest game fishing tournament over the weekend when they got up close and personal with a seriously inquisitive Great White shark.

Skipper John Smith and his crew were fishing for marlins and other species of sharks off the coast of Port Stephens, NSW, when they began to live out a real-life scene from the classic move Jaws, as a large fin emerged from the water and headed straight for them.

"They were drifting along about 30 nautical miles down and saw the fin. They had been fishing for Tiger sharks but they had a Great White turn up... it started eating their burley bag in the water," Troy Radford, President of Newcastle & Port Stephens Game Fish Club and host of the national tournament, told Yahoo News.

A burley bag, filled with fish bait, creates a scent in the water that attracts sharks and it certainly did the trick on Saturday as the fishermen encountered two more Great Whites while on the water. And despite the pictured shark being almost the same size as the men's boat, one of the others was even bigger.

"The shark in the pictures was well over five metres long and their boat was only five and a half metres," Troy told Yahoo.

The fishermen, aged in their late 40s and early 50s representing the Lake Macquarie Game Fish Club, have been fishing for most of their lives and told Troy they were "excited and pretty chuffed" to encounter the massive Great White sharks in the water.

Photos show one of the sharks up close and personal, with a fisherman even getting a chance to touch it. After following them for some time it eventually disappeared.

"He came up and he's actually chewed on the corner of the boat, pulling the boat down. The boys were patting him on the head," the club president said. "They actually said that they didn't win a prize [at the tournament] but they feel like the real winners to experience something like that...it's pretty special. It's an experience of a lifetime."

Remarking about the incredible scene, fishing veteran John Smith told the ABC the famous predator was "pretty much playing like a Labrador pup".

Great White sharks are a protected species in Australia and catching them is strictly prohibited, with fines of up to $55,000 and one year imprisonment for those who do.

There were 700 anglers completing over the weekend in the Port Stephens waters and much of the area will soon fall under the state government's proposed new offshore wind farm where fishing will be banned. However, the move has received considerable pushback, most notably from Opposition Leader Peter Dutton who said he would reverse the plan if he gets into power later this year.

There has also been pushback against the proposal from the game fishing community, with Troy saying fishermen "mostly tag and release" fish and creating the offshore wind farm would be "devastating for marine life" in the area.

"The fishermen seeing the sharks highlights how healthy that ecosystem out there must be to sustain three big, Great Whites swimming around," he said.

However there is hope the 1,800 square kilometre farm which will span from Port Stephens to Swansea will help boost the country's renewable energy supply and create more jobs in the area.

"It will create a lot of jobs in the Hunter [region], which is an area undergoing strong economic change with the move away from coal-fired power stations," Climate Change and Energy Minister Chris Bowen previously said.