Aussie surfer does a Fanning and fights off shark

Fanning escaped without any physical injury, but says he's been left dealing with emotional scars. Photo / Supplied

A surfer's desperate attempt to fight off a shark that was mauling him has been described as a "Mick Fanning replay" by a friend who witnessed the attack.

The 52-year-old man, named in media reports as Craig Ison, punched a shark that came up behind him during an early-morning surf off the New South Wales north coast yesterday.

The Evans Head local received serious injuries to his leg and arm shortly after his friend Geoff Hill spotted the shark and yelled for everyone to get out of the water.

As Ison paddled back to shore, the shark bit his leg and knocked him off his board before the surfer wrestled it away. "It was like watching a Mick Fanning replay," Hill told the Northern Star. "I paddled to him but by then he was on his board and paddling back. We put him on my board like a stretcher."

Images show Ison's punctured surf board, with a large bite mark on the side spanning about 25cm.

Police praised passersby who applied a tourniquet to Ison's injured leg using legropes from surfboards.

"Those people are to be praised for their quick thinking ... looked like they've saved this man's life," Detective Inspector Cameron Lindsay told reporters in Ballina, about 40km north of Evans Head.

Ison was rushed to Lismore Hospital in an ambulance driven by a police officer as paramedics frantically worked on him in the back.

Hill said they surfed every morning but they had had second thoughts about going into Main Beach but "it was such a beautiful day".

The attack follows Fanning's world headline-making escape from a shark during a competition in South Africa, which was broadcast live nearly two weeks ago. The Australian surfing champion punched at a great white shark that was trying to attack him during a final of the World Surf League event at Jeffreys Bay.

He escaped without any physical injury, but says he's been left dealing with emotional scars.

- AAP