Anglers reel in Great White shark on Pensacola Beach
NEWS
by: Carey Cox

Posted: Mar 13, 2021 / 08:28 PM CST / Updated: Mar 14, 2021 / 10:21 AM CDT

PENSACOLA, Fla. (WKRG) — A man from Idaho reeled in the catch of a lifetime last week on Pensacola Beach — a Great White shark!

Big John Shark Fishing Adventures posted a video of the “great” catch to the company’s YouTube channel Friday. Watch the full video below. (Warning: language)



Before the angler reeled in the catch, Big John McLean can be heard saying it could be a tiger shark or a mako, but as time passed and as the angler continued to reel in his catch, what emerged from the water was nothing short of shocking.

“You guys just caught a Great White,” McLean can be heard telling the angler. “That is something you will never see.”

McClean said it only took about 35-40 minutes to reel in the female Great White shark. By his estimate, the shark was about 12 feet long and could have weighed more than 1,000 pounds.

“This one was so rare and so unexpected… As far as I know, a group in Navarre caught one three years ago, so it’s uncommon,” McLean said. “I never thought in my lifetime I would catch a Great White… It’s really humbling, to say the least.”

The shark was released back into Gulf waters, and the group from Idaho will return home with one heck of a fish tale. “They told me, ‘Honestly if you hadn’t been as excited as you were, we would have thought this was a normal thing.'”

Just this week, two Great White sharks were tracked off the Gulf Coast by Ocearch. Cabot, a 9 foot 8 inch male Great White, weighing 533 pounds, and Edithe, an 11 foot 8 inch female Great White who weighs 1,185 pounds recently pinged south of Mobile Bay.

You can track these two, along with many other sharks, on Ocearch’s Shark tracker here.

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