Shark-wrestling Phil

Jane Holroyd
February 16, 2007
SMH

A South Australian man who wrestled and killed a 1.3-metre shark on Wednesday has been described as a "risk taker" by his wife.

Phillip Kerkhof, 41, jumped into shallow waters to chase the bronze whaler shark because it was eating bait that he and other fisherman were using off a jetty near Port Lincoln.

Mr Kerkhof wrestled the shark after capturing it in his arms and managed to fling it up onto the jetty before killing it.

His wife Christine said Phillip, a bricklayer, had nine lives.

"Just after we got married he fell off a 100-foot weir and did not even go to hospital," she told theage.com.au.

Mrs Kerkhof said she was at home on Wednesday when her husband arrived at their Louth Bay home with the shark.

"When he brought it home he called, 'Come out here! Come outside!' I walked outside and there's a shark on the lawn. I just shook my head because I'm used to my husband doing crazy things.

"He didn't think," Mrs Kerkhof said. "He'd had a few vodkas and wasn't thinking straight. He just does things off impulse. He thought about it later and said, 'That was a bit dangerous.'"