While much of the public safety focus is on great white sharks in the ocean, fishermen need to be “very cautious” when catching and releasing a different type of shark.

A 21-year-old man learned that the hard way over the weekend when he was bit in the leg by a sandbar shark on a Nantucket beach, and he ended up in the hospital.

The fishermen had caught the sandbar shark and was trying to release it in the surf when he was bit by the shark — estimated to be about 5-6 feet long.

“If you’re handling a big shark in the surf, there’s always a risk for a bite,” shark researcher John Chisholm told the Herald on Monday about the rare incident.

“Sandbar sharks are not an aggressive species,” he added, noting that it typically takes the shark to be provoked by a fisherman. “It’s a wake-up call for fishermen.”

The Nantucket Current first reported on the incident near Hoicks Hollow Sunday night.

The Current reported that the fisherman was transported by a Medflight helicopter to a hospital, and that he suffered non-life-threatening injuries.

Many fishermen target sandbar sharks along Nantucket. Striped bass fishermen will also accidentally catch sandbar sharks.

“For some fishermen, it’s a thrill to catch sandbar sharks and get it to the shore,” Chisholm said. “But they need to be very cautious when they go into the water to release the shark.

“We recommend cutting the line as close to the hook as you can, and let it go,” he added. “Don’t feel like you have to get the hook out of its mouth. The hook won’t kill it, and the hook will rust out.”

Ultimately when handling sharks, people should leave it to the professionals, Chisholm stressed.

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Shark researchers have been tagging sandbar sharks off Nantucket as part of a long-term study on the species’ annual presence and habitat use.

Sandbar sharks, after the local population was decimated decades ago because of overfishing, are now all over the Nantucket coast — and a researcher at the New England Aquarium has tagged more than 100 sandbar sharks in the area.

The local shark population had been wiped out because of overfishing for their large dorsal fin, which was highly desired for shark soup.

Then in 2008, sandbar sharks were protected in state and federal waters — leading to the gradual population rebound in recent years.

Recently, Massachusetts marine officials approved new rules to restrict shore-based white shark fishing.

Shore-based shark fishing has been growing in popularity, particularly through social media, with more anglers interested in targeting great white sharks.

The new rules that the Marine Fisheries Advisory Commission approved include banning shore-based shark fishing in specific areas where white sharks are common.

“The coastline beginning at the northernmost point of Plymouth Beach then south to the Cape Cod Canal in Sandwich, then eastward along the southern shore of Cape Cod Bay to Rock Harbor in Orleans, then northward along the eastern shore of Cape Cod Bay to Race Point in Provincetown, then south along the eastern Atlantic facing shore of Cape Cod, inclusive of all of Monomoy Island and Chatham Harbor,” the rules read.

The waters along the South Cape and Islands, where recreational shark fishing for non-white shark species has historically occurred, are not included in the regulations.

The regulations ban chumming when shore-based shark fishing from sunrise to sunset in Massachusetts, and the rules prohibit the use of mechanized or remote-controlled devices to deploy baits when fishing from shore with rod and reel gear.