A South Florida angler appears to have reeled in one of the largest bull sharks ever landed in state waters.
A South Florida angler appears to have reeled in one of the largest bull sharks ever landed in state waters.
According to Local 10 News, Michael Hengel hooked the massive shark from the Miami Beach shore Sunday night after kayaking 300 yards out to drop his baited line.
The shark measured 9-1/2 feet with a 55-inch girth. Based on a measurement formula, Hengel estimated the shark to weigh 550 pounds.
A South Carolina-based sportfishing captain tagged and released a nearly 11-foot great white shark on Friday, but not without help from a brave passenger.
A South Carolina-based sportfishing captain tagged and released a nearly 11-foot great white shark on Friday, but not without help from a brave passenger.
Capt. Chip Michalove, who’s permitted to tag white sharks for research, had just baited the shark when it turned and swam beneath his boat, causing the line to become snagged on a large barnacle.
Michalove jiggled the line with a gaff. He put the reel into free spool to help prevent the line from breaking. But he knew the only way to land the shark was for someone to jump overboard and free the line from the barnacle.
Ben Friedman admiring great white shark after swimming near predator
Moments later, Ben Friedman, angler and TikTok star, was in the water alongside the apex predator.
“I told Ben that he’s going to have to jump in to free the line from the barnacle if he wants to land this girl, and before I finished my sentence he was taking his shoes off,” Michalove, who runs Outcast Sport Fishing, wrote on Facebook. “It’s February, it’s freezing, and this guy hops in and swims under the boat to free it. And then stays in and convinces his camera guy to jump in, too.”
Capt. Chip Michalove during the tag-and-release process
Michalove told FTW Outdoors that the 10-foot, 8-inch shark was fitted with satellite tags once it had been reeled alongside the boat. Its weight was estimated at 750 pounds.
He conceded that Friedman had asked if he could swim alongside a hooked shark even before the charter began.
The white shark measured 10 feet, 8 inches and weighed about 750 pounds
“He brought up getting in the water, and as crazy as it seems, it’s common to have this request,” Michalove said. “I usually try and talk them out of it.”
Michalove explained that, in this case, circumstances aligned. He added: “There really isn’t as much of a threat, as the shark is under control on the side of the boat. I actually think popping the hook [from aboard the boat] is more dangerous than swimming next to it after a fight.”
Ben Friedman exiting the water after freeing the line
Michalove said Friedman signed a waiver before the trip. At the time of this post, Friedman had not responded to a request for a quote, and had not shared his footage publicly.
Keith Poe, who has tagged more than 5,000 sharks off California over the years, posted a video Sunday showing him hand feeding an 11-foot mako shark as though it were a pet.
Keith Poe, who has tagged more than 5,000 sharks off California, posted a video Sunday showing him hand feeding an 11-foot mako shark as though it were a pet.
Poe’s vast experience should be enough of a notice to novice fishermen that this is not something they should consider trying the next time they venture onto the ocean.
In the Facebook footage, accompanied by “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” by the late Israel Kamakawiwoʻole, the shark makes repeated passes behind and alongside Poe’s boat.
Poe on Tuesday uploaded the same video to YouTube, without music. That footage can be viewed below.
The shark, always surfacing off the stern and rising to the tuna carcass held over the port rail, seems careful to bite only the carcass instead of the hand that holds the bait.
So why does Poe, who encountered this mako shark 47 miles west of Marina del Rey, practice this routine before he begins the tagging process?
“This was the result of my hand feeding her for hours, calming her down and getting to know each other for the capture and tagging that was come,” Poe told FTW Outdoors. “I am trying to minimize the capture shock.
“For me, it’s all about being minimally invasive and I take it very seriously.”
Poe explained that mako sharks, the fastest sharks on earth, swim swiftly and warily when they appear in his chum slick.
“When they first come to the boat they’re very aggressive because they have to kill to survive,” Poe said. “They’re usually too smart to take a large hook until I build their trust, and they don’t freak out nearly as bad once I hook them.”
Poe, who uses hand-line gear and heavy line, said this mako, which measured 10 feet, 9 inches, was hand fed for nearly four hours.
After Poe finally hooked the shark, he had it tagged and released in only 30 minutes – a remarkably brief period considering the immense power a shark of this size possesses.
Poe probably wasn’t always so painstakingly considerate. He once tagged 54 mako sharks in a single night in outer Santa Monica Bay.
But mako sharks do seem to appreciate the hand feeding. Poe cited a 12-foot shark he tagged off Santa Catalina Island in 2019. “She came back and ate out of my hand, after I tagged and released her, for another 30 minutes,” he said.
That shark, named Cinderella, is among the dozens of mako and great white sharks Poe has tagged for the Marine Conservation Science Institute.
Anglers targeting mako sharks during a tournament Sunday off Maryland were visited instead by a great white shark that attacked a tuna carcass hanging overboard as chum.
Anglers targeting mako sharks during a tournament Sunday off Maryland were visited instead by a great white shark that devoured a tuna carcass hanging overboard as chum.
The accompanying footage shows the 12-foot shark ripping the tuna from its tether and moments later returning for a closer inspection of the boat’s stern.
“Hey, don’t eat my motor, bro!” an angler barks as the shark nearly brushes the vessel’s outboard engine.
The close encounter involved the boat Miller Time and occurred on the third and final day of the Mako Mania Shark Tournament out of Bahia Marina in Ocean City. Capt. Brandon Miller estimated the shark to measure 12 feet.
Stated Fish In OC: “The shark entered their chum slick and can be seen biting and hanging on to a tuna carcass presented by Ryan Oberholtzer as it swims just inches from the boat. The action took place at the 20 fathom fingers off of Ocean City, Maryland on June 6, 2021. The big shark swam away unharmed.”
Miller Time failed to make the Mako Mania leaderboard, but this spectacle undoubtedly proved to be a nice consolation.
White sharks, a protected species, are spotted sporadically off Ocean City.
When an entangled North Atlantic right whale was found dead off South Carolina on Feb. 27, several great white sharks were spotted by the same air crew.
When an entangled North Atlantic right whale was found dead off South Carolina on Feb. 27, several great white sharks were spotted by the airplane crew.
Capt. Chip Michalove, owner of Outcast Sport Fishing, developed a plan. He’d wait for a storm system to pass and try to find the carcass, and hope there were still a few sharks to possibly catch and tag for scientific research.
He set out Friday morning and not only managed to locate the carcass, he discovered that it had been transformed into a multi-ton buffet for at least seven and possibly many more great white sharks.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CMBYMWWBj9s/
“I’ve never seen anything like it, sharks were circling our boat for the entire eight hours,” Michalove, who has a permit to tag and release white sharks, told For The Win Outdoors. “They were biting the boat, pushing the boat, and biting the motors so much we had to pull the motors out of the water.”
Michalove added: “I never felt nervous. There were just so many in the area that it was more interesting to observe than to catch.”
Photo: Taylor Horton
When he returned to port he shared a video clip via Instagram showing a large shark biting flesh from the carcass. His description reads, in part:
“Maybe one of the best days I’ve been alive today. So much work went into finding this whale, and the pay off was one I’ll never forget. From 9 a.m. till we left it was one great white shark after another. Part of the time we hooked and tagged, other times we just watched.”
Photo: Taylor Horton
Michalove and his crew tagged two white sharks, a 12-footer and 16-footer, and spent the rest of the time “absorbing the chaos.”
The right whale, nicknamed Cottontail, died after a long and agonizing period of being entangled in commercial fishing gear, despite NOAA Fisheries’ attempts to plot a challenging disentanglement mission.
Photo: Taylor Horton
North Atlantic right whales are critically endangered and Cottontail’s death changed NOAA Fisheries’ Unusual Mortality Event count to 34 dead and 14 seriously injured.
The UME began in 2017 when 17 right whale deaths were recorded in Canada and the U.S. The leading cause of death is “human interaction,” notably fishing gear entanglement and vessel strikes.
Photo: Taylor Horton
Great white sharks typically begin to show off South Carolina in early winter, after the apex predators’ summer and early fall feeding season at seal rookeries off Cape Cod, Mass.
A prominent South Carolina sportfishing captain tagged his first great white shark of 2021 Thursday after he and a client hooked the same shark almost simultaneously.
A prominent South Carolina sportfishing captain tagged his first great white shark of 2021 Thursday after he and a client hooked the same shark almost simultaneously.
“While we weren’t watching we had this girl come up and crush both baits on a fly-by and we landed her on two rods,” Chip Michalove, of Outcast Sportfishing, wrote on Instagram. “Exhausting day, as it was just myself and Pavel Vykopel, and he’s got a blown-out rotator cuff.”
Michalove, with Vykopel’s help, placed two scientific tags on the 12-foot shark before setting the apex predator free.
The white sharks that Michalove targets each winter migrate into South Carolina waters after the summer and fall feeding season off Cape Cod, Mass. However, they’ve been difficult to locate this year.
“We’re already halfway through the season and it’s different,” Michalove told For The Win Outdoors. “The water in Cape Cod was unusually warm in the fall so it delayed the migration. Then, finally when they arrived it was 20- to 30-mph winds every day.”
Michalove and Vykopel made several moves before finding suitable conditions for setting up a chum slick. They were fishing with false albacore when the 12-foot white shark gobbled both baits to propel them into battle mode.
They had the shark alongside the boat in only 20 minutes.
Michalove, who runs out of Hilton Head, said this was the first white shark he has caught at this specific location.
“Now we’ve landed white sharks in 5 different spots off South Carolina, we’re getting better at figuring them out every winter.” he said.
–Images courtesy of Chip Michalove/Outcast Sportfishing
A fisherman in Australia captured video footage recently showing a mako shark leaping multiple times and almost landing on top of an angler in a nearby boat.
A fisherman in Australia captured video footage recently showing a mako shark leaping multiple times and almost landing on top of an angler in a nearby boat.
The close call was captured by Ryan Cowley off the Queensland town of Yeppoon, and featured Wednesday by 7 News Australia.
The silent footage, showing leaps of perhaps 20 feet, reveals the remarkable athleticism possessed by mako sharks, which are the world’s fastest sharks and can reach top speeds of nearly 50 mph.
Few details are in the 7 News report, and Cowley did not respond to an inquiry by For The Win Outdoors. It remains unclear whether the shark was hooked by someone on his boat, but a person with a rod and reel pointed in the shark’s direction can be seen at the beginning and end of the video.
Mako sharks will sometimes jump in this manner in an attempt to shake fishing hooks, but they’ve also been spotted free jumping for reasons that remain unclear.
In any case, it was fortunate for the shark and angler in the small boat that no contact was made.
Keith Poe spends much of his time offshore, trying to lure large sharks close enough to his boat to bait and tag for research.
Keith Poe spends much of his time offshore, trying to lure large sharks close enough to bait and tag for research.
What does the Southern California-based fisherman do with smaller sharks attracted by his chumming technique?
The accompanying footage shows Poe gently grabbing a free-swimming mako shark by its dorsal fin and stroking its back as casually as one might stroke the back of a dog or cat.
It’s a definite don’t-try-this-at-home moment, not advisable for anyone without vast experience working with sharks.
Poe, who tags apex predators for the Marine Conservation Science Institute, has caught an estimated 5,000 sharks and understands their behavior as well as anyone.
A much larger mako shark sent to freedom after it was tagged. Photo: Keith Poe
He told For The Win Outdoors that he was chumming in the San Pedro Channel off Los Angeles when the small mako shark appeared.
“She was just hanging out,” he said. “I was hand-feeding her and petting her for several hours while waiting for an adult shark to show up. I never [bait] them unless they’re mature females 9 feet and up.”
He said the shark was never aggressive, and that he shared the video because mako sharks “are always thought of as such vicious animals, and it’s just not true.
One of the sharks tagged recently off California. Photo: Keith Poe
“They come up to the boat all excited ready to kill something because that’s necessary to eat usually. But after a while they calm down and you get to know their real personality.”
One of the largest mako sharks Poe has tagged is named Cinderella. Her movements can be tracked via the MCSI’s Expedition White Shark app.
“When I tagged Cinderella, an 11-foot, 4-inch mako, I spent a long time with her, feeding her before I caught her,” Poe said. “It’s part of an effort to reduce capture shock. As a result, after I caught her, and tagged and released her, she stayed at the boat for an hour-and-a-half eating out of my hand.”
Poe, who recently had an 18- to 20-foot great white shark “hang out with me for five hours,” said he typically sends the sharks he tags away with an affectionate stroke of the head or back.
Call it a perk.
–Images showing Keith Poe working with sharks are courtesy of Keith Poe
