A Tasmanian surfer has described the panic in the water of his home break after a shark sighting on the east coast on Sunday.

Tom Kelly was surfing when he saw a shape in the water and heard the screams of a teenager who came within mere metres of it. He was paddling at Shelly Point, Beaumaris, when he spotted the three-metre white shark early on Sunday afternoon.

"I was starting to think about heading in and then I saw something in the water just next to the kid," he said.

"Very, very shortly after he started screaming 'shark!' We all got out of the water as quick as we could and I paddled in on the next wave."

"I spoke to his dad who was on the beach watching, and his dad reckoned he saw a shark jump out right next to his kid."

Mr Kelly said it was a "pretty frantic" few minutes as beachgoers tried to raise the alarm. "Everyone's there screaming and the conditions were quite windy," he said.

"The people around the kid immediately got out because they could hear him but there was a couple of people probably 50 to 100 metres away who couldn't hear us. We were there screaming up to them from the beach to say 'get out' and they didn't pick up on it for probably a couple of minutes."

Mr Kelly said the family appeared to be okay following the close encounter. "The kid probably handled it better than I thought," he said. "He sat on the beach and he was quite shocked for probably five or 10 minutes."

"I saw him in the carpark later and he seemed quite alright so hopefully it hasn't scared him out of the water permanently."

Tom Kelly was in the water when the Great White was spotted (Sam Kelly)

Surf Life Saving Tasmania chief executive Tony van den Enden said shark sightings were not uncommon on the east coast during summer.

"We do see them around this time of the year," he said. "They've got a track they'll follow with bait fish or with their prey up and down the east coast of Australia, down Tasmania and in around the Flinders Island area."

Mr van den Enden said there were tips surfers could follow to try and avoid a shark encounter. "Avoid sort of swimming and surfing at twilight hours because … it is quite hard to see what's happening out there," he said. "Also [there] would be less people around if something was to happen.

"Avoid using areas where you have recreational commercial fisherman working around or if there's a lot of signs of bait fish or fish feeding in the area."

In 2015, a recreational scallop fisherman was fatally attacked by a great white shark near Maria Island, on the state's east coast.

Teenager Hannah Mighall survived an attack at the Gardens, also on the east coast, in 2009.

//TIM MORGAN
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