COCOA BEACH, Fla. -- Sharks forced the closure of Cocoa Beach on Thursday. Lifeguards shut it down for about two hours Thursday morning after someone spotted the toothy fish. There are lots of sharks near other beaches, like Ponce Inlet and New Smyrna, but rarely are they closed because of them.

"People don't understand that these waters are full of sharks," fisherman David Anthony said.

At the end of the Cocoa Beach pier, where Thursday's shark sighting forced the beach to close, fishermen have a perfect view of razor-toothed fish. Mark Shaeffer caught a hammerhead Thursday.

"I looked down and said, 'Wow! It's a shark.' I was surprised by it," he said, adding that he'd never caught a shark before.

David Anthony spent two hours reeling in a 200-pound, 7-foot lemon shark last week, so he knows first hand there are dangerous sharks out there.

"Big enough to do some harm to a human?" WFTV reporter Steve Barrett asked.

"Oh yeah. It had a mouth like this big around," he said, gesturing. "Teeth like this."

From Satellite to Cocoa, shark sightings seemed to be everywhere today. The water at the pier was off limits for a couple of hours after one of many reports lifeguards have had in the past week.

"If we suspect there's a shark, we're always gonna send a lifeguard down to take a look at it and, if we confirm it's a shark, we're gonna pull everybody out of the water," said Eisen Witcher, Beach Patrol.

Many of the shark sightings are actually rays; their fins look like dorsals. But the rays also attract sharks.

Brevard County averages less than one shark attack a year and it has been just over a year since a surfer was bitten by a bull shark off Cocoa Beach. There have been about 85 reported shark attacks in Brevard in the last century and only one fatality.

Lifeguards say size really doesn't matter. They take no chances when a shark is cited. The policy when it happens is to close the beach for at least an hour.