Four fishermen have had a frightening encounter with a giant shark who began biting down on their charter boat.

The men were on an annual fishing trip in Coral Bay, Western Australia on Wednesday when the attack happened.  

Footage show the three metre bronze whaler shark chomping on the boat's propeller.

The men were fishing on Coral Bay and had unknowingly caught the shark on the end of one of their lines.

After fighting with it for an hour, the shark emerged from the ocean and headed for the propeller at the back of the charter boat.

The animal then attempted to swallow the propeller as

He took a liking to the engine and he hung on there for a good few minutes,' captain Matt Zen told 9News.  

'We started to get a bit worried about how we were going to get him off.'

The shark gave up trying to consume the propeller five minutes later and returned to the deep.

The boat was not damaged from the encounte

the fishermen tried to figure out what to do next.