Not surprisingly, the 13-foot crocodile won this battle, racing ashore and chasing down the barramundi as Daniel attempted to drag it away, as seen in the video above.
Dac shared their exhilarating tale with the Australian Broadcasting Corp. on Sunday.
They were fishing a backwater pond in the Top End of the Northern Territory when Daniel hooked a good-sized barramundi. It was caught up in some weeds, but Daniel managed to free it. As he started reeling it to shore, the crocodile started swimming toward it.
“Everything escalated from there pretty quickly,” Dac told ABC. “He started bringing the fish faster and faster towards the bank, but the croc sort of matched the speed. I wasn’t looking at Daniel, I just sort of hoped that he was running.”
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Dac can be heard instructing Daniel to “run back.”
“He just kept moving back until he couldn’t really go anymore, and at that point the croc sort of caught up to it,” Dac told ABC.
“We were shocked. We were sad. I was disappointed for Daniel. It was a good fish.”
The two fishermen moved back to a safe distance and watched the crocodile.
“We weren’t hanging around for any other sort of explosive action,” Dac told ABC. “I think it went to sleep. It didn’t move a muscle for ages.”
Dac called it “an experience of a lifetime,” and one can understand why.
Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.
