A Mako Shark Bit a Malibu Kayaker Twice as He Tried to Release It

The shark was hooked about half a mile off Paradise Cove, and fire officials later reclassified the attack as a fishing accident.

A fisherman off Malibu hauled a hooked shark onto his kayak Sunday morning and was bitten twice, the second time after he'd let it go. Lifeguards believe it was a shortfin mako. By 8:55 a.m. he was headed to a hospital, and his condition hasn't been made public.

The Los Angeles County Fire Department first described it as a confirmed shark attack, Surfer reported, then called it a fishing accident, ABC7 reported. Either way, the shark was on the man's own line before it ever bit him.

The kayak was roughly half a mile out from Paradise Cove, off the 28200 block of West Pacific Coast Highway, county fire officials told ABC7. The first bite came while he was working the shark free and tipped him into the sea, the department said. Once he was in the water, it bit him again.

Alex Buford, a county lifeguard, told NBC Los Angeles the man had pulled the shark up onto the kayak before the first bite. Then, Buford said, "he let the shark go and then the shark came back and knocked him off the boat," and it got his leg a second time.

Not everyone puts him in the water for that second bite. A manager at the Paradise Cove Beach Cafe, who asked KTLA not to use his name, said witnesses told him the shark leaped from the sea onto the kayak to strike again.

The clocks don't agree, either. Buford told NBC Los Angeles the call came in at about 7:30 a.m.; the fire department logged it at 8:32 as a "bite or sting."

Help came from the water first. A fisherman on a nearby boat had seen the attack and pulled him aboard, and the man called his girlfriend, a retired lifeguard, who dialed 911 and helped get him from the boat to the beach, Traffic News Los Angeles, a news-video service, told KTLA. Video circulating from the morning shows a lifeguard swimming out toward the boat carrying the kayaker; Surfer said it couldn't find any verified footage of the shark itself.

The cafe manager noticed the commotion around 8:30 a.m. and watched the boat bring the man in. He said the fisherman walked with help, bite marks in two spots: low on the leg, and just over the knee. County lifeguards and firefighters met him on the sand and put him in an ambulance.

Paradise Cove stayed open Sunday. Makos are fast, aggressive hunters that average 6 to 7 feet, NBC Los Angeles reported, and Buford said where they live is the reason lifeguards didn't close the beach. "Mako sharks typically stay in deeper water, so I don't think there's too much concern for shallow water swimming," he told NBC Los Angeles.

"We've had a lot of crazy stuff happen here, but we've never had a shark attack like that," the cafe manager told KTLA.

Source: ktla.com, retrieved October 5, 2026. Other sources: abc7.com, nbclosangeles.com, surfer.com.