Fishermen's close encounter with five-metre great white shark

The images show the apex predator with a burley bag in its mouth, followed by the experienced fishermen expertly rescuing their equipment from its teeth.

It was one of three "nice little encounters" the men on X-stream had with a great white shark over the course of the Newcastle and Port Stephens Game Fishing Club's Billfish Shootout on Saturday.

Skipper John Smith is a commercial fisherman who has spent his life on the water, with more than four decades of deep sea fishing experience.

He's seen some big fish over the years, but he's never had multiple white pointers surfacing close enough to "pat them on the head".

"I've been game fishing since I was 12 years old, I'm 54 now, and I haven't seen a great deal of whites," Mr Smith said.

"I've seen one 20-odd years ago, a big fella, but to see three in a day, it's just next level."

The X-stream team was targeting legal species of sharks for the game fishing tournament when "all of a sudden, a white pointer in excess of 1500 pounds" - or more than four metres long - surfaced near the boat.

"A fish that big, they don't have any fear factor," Mr Smith said.

"We teased them up with the burley bag and got some unbelievable footage."

The team was getting close to running out of its allocated fishing zone, so Mr Smith moved about 15 kilometres away, leaving the shark behind.

"Half an hour later, we were hounded by another one that was even bigger," he said.

"We fed that one a little and got that one to finally leave the boat.

"They're protected species so we're not allowed to fish for them, so we don't target them, we don't try to catch them, we just try to get rid of them as best we can."

After the roughly five-metre shark left, they had another encounter with a "little" great white, which was about two metres in size.

"We didn't catch a fish to win the tournament, [but] we definitely had an exciting day considering our boat is only 18.6 metres long," Mr Smith said.

"We had it chewing on the back corner at one stage."

Newcastle and Port Stephens Game Fishing Club president Troy Rayford praised the fishermen, who remained cool and calm during each encounter with the sharks, which were estimated to be between four and five metres.

"They're seasoned fishermen and they've seen a lot of sharks, but it still blew their mind seeing one of them up close. They're beautiful creatures," he said.

"It's not something that happens every day, but it's not uncommon. If there's one, there's often two.

"They come and they go, turn up when the food is there or the water is right. Whether they were there to mate, we don't know. But all the stars align."

The Billfish Shootout is one of the nation's largest game fishing tournaments. This year more than 145 boats turned out with 750 anglers competing for a share of $250,000 in prize money.