Video: Fisherman frees shark hooked on fishing line in Hermosa Beach

A brave fisherman jumped into the Pacific Ocean Wednesday to help a young great white shark hooked on a fishing line in Hermosa Beach as onlookers captured the wild moment on video.

The fisherman, Kevin Phan, accidentally caught the shark off the Hermosa Beach Pier. As he realized what kind of big catch was on the other end of the fishing line, he ran down to the shoreline to try to free the shark.

Phan hopped into the water and approached the shark, which was slowly moving.

Bystander Matthew McIvor and his wife were watching the events unfold from the pier and a video captured by McIvor shows Phan grabbing onto the shark’s tail, trying to keep the fish in the water.

The clip shows a local lifeguard driving onto the sand and trying to help.

Eventually, Phan was able to cut the line, remove the hook, and release the shark into the crashing waves.

As the shark swims away, McIvor’s video shows Phan and the lifeguard giving one another a high-five as about a dozen onlookers cheer from the pier.

McIvor told NBC Los Angeles that he and his wife regularly walk the Hermosa Beach strand and pier. As they strolled Wednesday morning, McIvor spotted a fisherman “struggling with a fishing rod.”

He thought it was odd because, as he put it, “I usually never see anybody catch anything of importance.”

But this morning was different.

“I saw the fishing line like really like bent over and I’m like, ‘Oh wow, someone’s got something big, or it’s caught on something,’ McIver explained. “I just looked over the railing and I was like, ‘Oh my God, it’s like young shark,’ and I was like, ‘That’s insane.’”

McIvor quickly pulled out his phone to film the moment because he’d never seen anything like it in his 15 years of living in Hermosa Beach.

“So, yeah, I started filming, and then I saw the kid running down to the shore, and I was like, ‘Oh man, this is not going to end well,’” he said. “But it seemed like he really knew what he was doing and he was super comfortable. And, you know, after only like a couple of minutes, he was able to get the hook out of the shark’s mouth and get it safely back into the water.”

McIvor said the shark seemed tired from fighting to get off the hook.

“I don’t know if it typically would thrash about, or it was tired, so it didn’t,” he explained. “I don’t know how sharks act when they get beached like that. But again, the kid really seemed like he knew what he was doing. He was insanely calm — probably calmer than I would be in that situation.”

Once the shark was free, McIvor said everyone looking on from the pier seemed relieved.

“Everybody was clapping. I think everybody wanted the same result,” he said. “Everybody was super stoked when the shark finally made it back into the water.”

McIvor said the water was clear, so the group was able to watch the shark swim away.

He yelled down at Phan, “Good job!”

McIvor said the moment certainly made for a “pretty unique start to the day,” which also happened to be his wife’s birthday.

McIvor told NBCLA he posted the video on Instagram and Phan was the first person to comment on it. He doesn’t personally know Phan, so seeing him pop up in his feed was a fun surprise.

“I was surprised that he found the video randomly,” he said.

Other fishermen who seemed to know Phan also began commenting on McIvor’s video.

McIvor owns a nearby restaurant, Proudly Serving, and invited Phan to come in for a burger.

McIvor said Phan ended up coming into his restaurant later, but they didn’t get a chance to meet because McIvor and his wife were in Venice celebrating his wife’s birthday.

“He posted his story and all that kind of stuff,” McIvor said. “I told my cashier, ‘If this kid comes in, give him a burger, on me.’”

Shark experts said the uptick is a result of the warmer weather. Keenan Willard reports for the NBC4 News at 5 p.m. on March 27, 2026.

A “sharky” season in Southern California

According to local experts, shark sightings have been higher than usual this year across Southern California because the weather and water have been warmer than usual.

That pattern is expected to continue through the summer.

Last week, Chris Lowe, director of the California State University Long Beach Shark Lab, told NBCLA that a strong El Niño and a marine heat wave stemming from the Pacific Northwest over the next few months is likely to push more sharks to the SoCal shorelines.

“So based on that, we predict it’s going to be a very sharky summer,” Lowe said.

 Lowe said that although being bitten by a shark is possible, the probability is rare.

“We’re not food and we’re not a threat, so we’re just something to ignore,” he told NBCLA last week.

Still, local beachgoers can take steps to protect themselves, including swimming or surfing in groups, avoiding the water at dawn or dusk, and sticking to beaches with lifeguards on duty.

On March 26, Newport Beach Fire Department lifeguards confirmed a sighting of an 8-foot great white shark circling a surfer in Newport Beach, off 35^th Street. Access to the water was closed for several hours as a precaution.