A 19-foot great white circled a fishing boat off northern Perth forcing a popular beach to temporarily close while in Angourie, NSW, a surfer nearly got bitten by a shark while on his surfboard on Sunday.

The Scarborough beach closed for about 45 minutes starting 9:45 a.m. and a Westpac helicopter checked the waters for the big shark reported by a fisherman three nautical miles off Mindarie Keys.

The fisherman named John phoned 6PR telling the radio host that a shark as big as his boat circled it at Staggie Reef.

"I got a hook up with a fish and I looked over and there was this big (shark) next to me circling the boat," John said, according to WA Today. He then alerted dive boats to get out of the water.

In Angourie near Yamba, NSW, local surfer Steve King was fortunate not to lose a leg when a shark bit off part of his surfboard while he was paddling towards a one-and-a-half-metre swell around 5:45 a.m.

"I was about 150 metres from the shore and my mate had just caught a wave in. When the next set came through I started paddling down the face of the wave. As I went to stand up I got hit from behind on the right-hand side," King said, according to Daily Examiner. "As I turned around to grab the board I saw something brown swirling underneath it. The next minute the yellow chunk bitten from the board was then spat back out from under the water."

Realizing it was a shark, King paddled and caught the next wave to return to shore and screamed to his mate not to go back out.

King suffered five puncture wounds on his leg.