Great White Spotted Off Monomoy Witnesses to the great white "This thing was definitely strutting its stuff" sportfisherman says By KAREN JEFFREY STAFF WRITER CHATHAM - With a twist of his head and roll of his eyes, Joe Summa does a great impression of a shark rising out of the water. It is an imitation based on first-hand experience. The group of six fishermen from New Jersey got more than they bargained for when they booked Captain Joe Fitzbackís charter fishing boat Saturday. Summa and five of his close friends were aboard a 20-foot charter fishing boat about one mile from shore Saturday afternoon when they had a brush with a shark - literally. It was a heart-pounding experience that changed the way they look at the sea. What banged against their boat, stripped two fishing lines bare of weighty striped bass and soaked them to the bone with a slap of its tail was at least 14 feet long and weighed a minimum of 700 to 800 pounds, said these six young people from northern New Jersey. "I swear, I swear that shark was looking right at me. He must have heard me talking trash about his species all morning," said Summa, replacing the imitation with a more somber expression. "It was one hell of an experience, I tell you that. It was something we'll remember for a lifetime - which thank God wasn't cut short by a shark," he said. His friends said they realized that certain precautions should be taken when boating, and just haphazardly jumping into the sea might not be the best idea when far from shore. Charter boat captain Joe Fitzback of Top Rod Custom Charter tentatively identified the fish as a great white shark. Though it is not common for great whites to be reported so close to the Cape shore, it is not an unheard of experience, according to Chatham Harbor Master Stuart Smith. Routine harbor patrols were on the lookout for sharks yesterday, but as of late afternoon none were sighted, he said. Great white sharks range in size from about 14 to 20 feet in length and generally weigh 1,500 to 4,000 pounds, according to the SeaWorld/Busch Gardens Web site -seaworld.org. They generally inhabit temperate waters, especially along coastlines, including the Cape. "A great white is going to be distinguished by distinctive white lines alongside where the gills are," said Smith. "We have them in Nantucket Sound once in a while." Fitzback is "a credible person. If he said it's a great white, then it very likely is," Smith said. "He's not a man prone to exaggeration." Fatal shark attacks on humans are relatively uncommon - the only reported fatality from a shark attack in Massachusetts occurred in Buzzards Bay in 1936. According to the International Shark Attack File in Gainesville, 34 of the nation's 51 reported shark attacks last year were in Florida. One of the attacks was fatal: A 69-year-old man was killed by a bull shark near his St. Petersburg home last August. There were 79 shark attacks worldwide last year, including 10 that were fatal. File officials said it is the highest number since the organization began keeping records in 1958. Great white sharks account for most of the shark attacks on humans. Records kept since the middle of the 19th century report 231 great white attacks worldwide. "I don't care what kind of fish it was. It was big and the hit against the boat jarred one of my contacts lose," said Fab Silva. "This is not a fish I'd care to tangle with. " Summa and Silva, along with their other friends from New Jersey, arrived on the Cape late Friday night with plans to "hang out and maybe do a little fishing." Summa, whose family has had a summer home in Chatham for many years, is a Cape regular. "We're a lucky group" The weekend had an auspicious beginning with a quick stop at a Connecticut casino on the way to the Cape. J.D. O'Brien racked up a $2,000 win on the roulette wheel. Vinnie DelRusso walked away with an extra $70 in his pocket. "We're a lucky group," Summa said. Four years ago the same group of friends had visited the Cape together and taken a charter to fish for blues. Saturday they decided to make a similar foray off the coast. A few telephone calls landed them in a 20-foot boat captained by Fitzback, a fisherman for more than 40 years. He took the six erstwhile fishermen about a mile offshore. All the way out Summa asked questions about sharks - great white sharks in particular. There were the requisite jokes about the movie "Jaws" and a few squeamish comments about the recent shark attack in Florida that critically injured a young boy. Summa bragged about what he would do if he ever faced a shark. He had his friends take a photograph of him making an obscene gesture towards a sand shark they caught and threw back. "Oh, I was talking baaad about sharks," he said. "I talk a little more respectfully about them now - at least if they're in hearing distance." By all standards it was a perfect day. The sun was shining. Friends Kelly McLaud and Laura Broussard were at front of the boat soaking up the sunshine. Toward the back of the boat were "the boys" getting some professional fishing advice from Fitzback. "Every time we dropped a line we got a fish. The striped bass were biting. It was incredible," said DelRusso. "This guy absolutely knew how to get us where the fish were." "We must have caught 30 fish but ended up only keeping four. That doesn't count the two the shark got," he said. Summa was wrestling with a striped bass he estimates to have weighed anywhere from 15 to 20 pounds. He watched about 20 feet out from the boat as the fish was pulled along just beneath the surface. "Suddenly there was this - woosh," he said, waving his hand in a fluid motion. "I pulled up the head of bass with a string of guts and a backbone hanging," he said. Meanwhile DelRusso continued fishing from the other side of the boat. The captain and other passengers squinted in the direction of the strike. Almost as big as the boat By then the shark's fin was clearly visible. They watched in fascinated horror as the big fish swam alongside them, bumping up against the vessel. "That thing was almost as big as the boat," said Kelly McLaud who began snapping pictures. "We couldn't take our eyes off the thing." As Summa pulled the remains of the bass aboard, "the captain pulls the head off and throws it in the water, saying in a very serious voice - reel in," said Silva. "It wasn't like he was scared or really issuing orders. But he was very professional about it." DelRusso caught sight of the big fish starting to circle the bass at the end of his line on the other side of the boat. "It didn't strike, but it must have rubbed up alongside," he said. "When the captain pulled it up, there was a big cut alongside that fish. You could see its guts," he said. The captain pulled DelRusso's fish off the line and tossed it back in the water. "He did this quickly. And now that I think of it, I'm glad. I would not want to have seen that shark jumping up to get the fish on board," DelRusso said. The shark disappeared, but soon reappeared circling the boat, "like I would circle Taco Bell looking for a meal," said O'Brien, adding that he has a more Hemingwayesque view of life than his friends. "I wanted to catch that shark, just like the 'Old Man and the Sea,'" he said. "They didn't like the idea." When the shark turned quickly in front of the boat there was a collective "whooooo" from the six friends. "This thing was definitely strutting its stuff. It was saying, 'I'm not one of those sand sharks,'" Summa said. Fitzback headed the boat toward shore, deciding that they had supplied the shark with more than enough food for the day. "We appreciated the fact that it could be risky out there with a shark of that size circling around," said DelRusso. All six friends agree that the experience was "scary but spectacular," said Summa.