More than two million people have watched the YouTube video of a shark yanking a fish from Sarah Brame's pole while fishing from a dock in Cherry Grove Inlet Tuesday.
Director of Husbandry at Ripley's Aquarium Tim Hansel is one of them.
"To have the shark come up and actually following that fish and take it right off the surface, part of the shark came out of the water, that's a little less common and pretty exciting," said Hansel.
From looking at the video, Hansel believes a bull shark is responsible for taking Brame's catch.
"The shortness of the noise and the stockiness of the shark," said Hansel, "It was probably a bull shark."
Coastal Carolina University Shark Expert Dan Abel said it would not be unusual for a bull shark to be in the Cherry Grove Inlet.
Bull sharks are aggressive and do pose a threat to swimmers.
That's why Hansel suggests anyone who swims in open water to do so with caution.
"Bull sharks do tend to be a little more aggressive than other species of sharks, but other than that they act like any other predator in the ocean."
And while it may seem like having a shark steal your fish from the reel is a once in a lifetime occurrence, Hansel believes the rarest thing about the entire encounter is that a camera was recording on the whole thing.
"It's not like just because we saw this shark yesterday that was just chasing this fish that was struggling on a line means that everything is going haywire," said Hansel. "They're out there all the time anyway. It just so happens that this one opportunity a person caught it on film."
As far as swimming in the inlet, people should act as they would normally because the water is still safe, said Hansel.
But he warns not to swim at night in waters known to habitat sharks and not to swim near people fishing.
