A couple of weeks ago, we spotted a couple snorkeling in the lake off the shore of Murrays Beach near Swansea.
"They're game," we told our companion.
Although a shark attack hadn't happened for decades, we'd covered quite a few stories of bull sharks and great whites in the lake.
Before Saturday's incident, the last reported shark attack in Lake Macquarie was thought to be on October 14, 1946 in Swan Bay at Marks Point, when a swimmer was bitten on the leg.
Nevertheless, the Newcastle Herald ran a spate of stories on bull sharks and great whites in Lake Macquarie from 2012 to 2015.
"There are more bull sharks in the lake than I have ever seen," sailor Chris Caldecoat said at the time.
He was referring to parts of the lake not far from the site of Saturday's attack.
The main photo shows a bull shark caught in Eraring Power Station's outlet canal in October 2012. The other image shows a bull shark caught in the Dora Creek-Eraring area around the same time. These sharks were both caught near Yarrawonga Park, where Saturday's shark attack occurred.
It's been well documented that an abundance of marine creatures, including sharks, are attracted to the power station's canal system and its flowing warm water.
The sharks also like Pulbah Island, which sits in between Wangi Wangi, the Morisset Peninsula and Murrays Beach.
In December 2013, fishers spotted a great white breaching the lake's surface.
The shark breached near a tinny from which Tony Pockett and Troy Twyford had caught jewfish.
"It's nearly as long as the boat," Mr Pockett said at the time. Soon after, Tony and Judy Upton, of Woodrising, were fishing in a five-metre vessel anchored between Pulbah Island and Wangi.
"I got this really good fish and was pulling it in," Mr Upton said at the time. "The next minute, this shark flew out of the water about four to five feet in the air. We were shaking for half an hour afterwards. It came up belly first - we saw this big sheet of white in the air and it bent in a half-moon."
That same month, NSW fisheries officers revealed they had devised a contingency plan to capture an aggressive 3.5-metre great white shark that had been striking fear into the hearts of fishers at Pulbah Island.
The issue kept bobbing around for more than a year. Then in January 2015, the CSIRO revealed a plan to hook a great white shark in the lake and tow it slowly to the ocean.
Ecologists point out that sharks in the lake mean the ecosystem is balanced. And old fishos, of course, say there's always been sharks in the lake.
Lake Monster
In Aboriginal folklore, a monster fish called Wauwai lived in the deep waters around Pulbah Island. Indigenous people believed their canoes would be attacked and overturned if they went too close to the island. They feared being eaten by the monster [thought to be a shark].
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