The giant tiger shark was released immediately after the capture.
An angler from North Topsail Beach landed a giant tiger shark with a length of 11 feet and 7 inches. The estimated weight is nearly 700 pounds.
The fish was caught using a 10-pound false albacore. The Get Bent Land-Based Shark Fishing Team managed to capture the giant tiger shark last week.
The lucky angler has only two years of land based shark fishing, and he is considered to be new to the sport.
In this case, the angler focused on an area full of predators because he aimed at catching one of them, and it was not by accident that the tiger shark landed on the bait.
“We chose the area specifically because of all the catches that were being reported off the island of very large tarpon. We knew that there would be larger sharks feeding on them. There’s also a lot of turtle nests in the area, and tiger sharks love eating sea turtles,” said David Schmidt, the man who caught the giant predator.
Schmidt explained that he kayaked the bait at 500 yards away from the coast, at about 8 o’clock in the evening. He and his friends usually took that habit in order to avoid swimmers and beach traffic.
Within a quarter of an hour, the giant tiger shark hit the bait. The line started to scream off the reel, and the angler knew that it would be a good one. He bumped the drag up; he began to fight the force of the fish which started to peel the line rapidly off the reel.
This entire struggle with the line convinced Schmidt that the capture would be a special one, much different from the regular seven footers caught in the area.
The angler said that the giant fish tried to ran away a couple of times, and the fight took almost 25 minutes. He was lucky enough to use a strong rod and a reel setup that helped bring the fish to the land.
Schmidt used a 14/0 Everol reel and a 6-foot stand-up rod. The sandbar leader was 30 feet of 1,200-pound monofilament. The leaders are linked with barrel swivels that weigh 1,000 pounds and that are anchored on the ocean floor.
After the giant tiger shark had been brought closer to the shore, the anglers started to make measurements and photos of the capture.
The fish was then brought back in the shallows, resuscitate it, and then released it back into the waters.
The team often tags sharks for the Apex Predators Program sustained by NOAA. In this case, the giant tiger shark was released as soon as possible in order to protect the animal.
Image Source: Wikipedia
