A group of Florida fisherman have become the first people ever to catch a Great White Shark from dry-land in the Gulf of Mexico. Great White Sharks are extremely rare in the Gulf and do not often come near shore anyway. This one had ventured almost to shore in Panama City, Florida.
When Derrick Keeny and his buddies set out for some shark fishing along Panama City Beach, the last thing they thought they would see was a Great White. They went out in the early morning hours when they knew sharks near the coast were most active. Never in their wildest dreams did they think they would latch onto a Great White from dry-land.
“I’m still blown away by it. Lost for words, Keeny said.
“I put hooks in the fish, and when I put hooks in the fish, it started tearing line off the reel,” he said. He immediately knew they were dealing with something big. Very big.
“That’s when I started hollering for everyone to wake up because we had a good fish on the line,” he said.
It took nearly an hour to reel the big fish in. “We were up and down, over and around on sandbars,” Smeby said. “We get up there close, and all we see is a big, grey back and a dorsal fin.”
The men tagged the shark and released it. They estimate it was only 300-400 yards from shore when they began reeling in the historic catch.
Great White Sharks are seldom seen in the Gulf of Mexico as their winter migratory patterns usually do not carry them beyond the East Coast of Florida. None have ever been known to go as far up as the Northern Gulf of Mexico as this one did.
