A fisherman off the coast of Southern California may have caught the largest mako shark on record, weighing in at around 1,300 pounds.
The 12-foot-long shark was reeled in by Texas man Jason Johnston just outside of the Los Angeles Harbor, reported KTLA. The station reported that it took him more than two hours to bring the shark in.
“It’s unreal. This thing is definitely a killing machine. Any wrong step, I could have gone out of the boat and down to the bottom of the ocean,” Johnston told the station. “He took out a quarter-mile of line ... and five times he came out of the water over 20 feet,” he added. “It was amazing.”
Johnston added that pulling in the shark was “the scariest thing I’ve ever done in my life,” reported the Los Angeles Times.
Scripps Institution of Oceanography fisheries researcher Nick Wegner told the Times that the shark was likely the largest mako shark caught via angling on record. He said that 1,400- and 1,500-pound sharks have been harpooned.
“It’s pretty rare to catch a fish this big,” he said. “If we can see what’s in the stomach, that gives us an idea of what they’re eating.”
