Giant mako shark (917 pounds) caught off Orange County

For Craig Winters and Brian Cope, the highlight of a recent shark-fishing expedition off Southern California was the capture of a few small blue sharks and a close encounter with a great white shark.

That is, until a giant mako shark swooped in and grabbed the bait attached to Winters' hook.

So began an epic fight, during which Winters was nearly pulled overboard as the great predator fled toward the horizon, then leapt once in the distance. It sounded deeply for an extended period then leapt again just before the struggle concluded—four long hours after the hookup.

"I'll tell you, for a 53-year-old that was a real chore," said Winters, who was visiting from Albany, Texas.

Winters and Cope fished for three days on a 37-foot yacht out of Mako Matt's Marine in Huntington Beach. They were chumming off South Orange County.

Cope had caught a couple of small blue sharks and during one of the days a huge great white shark followed their chum line  to the corner of their stern.

"Matt told me how privileged we were because there are only about 6,000 of these sharks in the world," Winter said. "But on the flip side, we're not going to see any other sharks as long as he was here."

Great white sharks are protected off California. Winters had come specifically to target large makos, and the group almost passed on an estimated 400-pounder but eventually tried to bait the smaller mako.

"We were going to hook the 400-pounder but then the big one came in and just took it," Winters said. I don't even know where he came from. He just took it, and went."

The shark was too heavy to be hauled onto the boat so it was towed back to port and weighed late Wednesday night on a certified scale at a Los Angeles meat processing plant.

Winters will keep the jaws but he left the meat with the plant, to be donated to local homeless shelters.

At 917 pounds, it's one of the largest makos ever caught and far heavier than the 200- to 300-pound average, but well shy of the world record: a 1,221-pound mako caught off Chatham, Mass., in 2001.

It's one of three giant makos to have been caught off Southern California, and the catch comes just before the beginning of the last major beach weekend of the summer.

--Image showing Craig Winters with the 917-pound shark is courtesy of Winters

Comments

[Bob]

It a big fish.

Native Americans whale hunted, those are mammals. "ecociders? Can we stop watch finding nemo and think sharks are people?

This is public education dollars at work, don't you all have something better to care about, like people? You see, once you start caring about people and getting people to care about each other, they won't go to extremes and cause extinction of other species. Right now, this outcry for the "ecociding" of Tuna or some fish you may like does not help you out in humanities view of you.

[Mike Hanson]

Posted by Tee Kay: "The levels of methylmercury, an organic compound of mercury, in that shark would be so high due to its size and age that he would not be able to sell it on the market, that would be why they gave it away to homeless shelters."

Here is a 411 clue: Sport caught fish can not be sold on the market or anywhere else. Try knowing what you are talking about prior to posting. That way you won't look like such a tool.

[law abiding, eco-sustainable fisherman]

hmmm, apparently some of you posters are so quick to judge and apply your pre-formed opinions that you didn't even read the part about how this magnificent catch (caught in a perfectly legal manner) was donated to feed the homeless. OH MY, what a tragedy!!!!! you looney eco-hippies think it's terrible to feed the poor. Your anti-human actions are disgraceful!... and your reading abilities too. perhaps that's a reflection of the actual fact based knowledge you possess about mother ocean and her creatures too.

[Mike Hanson]

What a nice catch! I personally would have released the big female Mako, however.

To all the posters calling this guy a coward, disgusting, etc, get a life. It was a legal fish taken in a legal manner. Sport fisherman account for less than 1% of fish harvested. You want to stop over fishing? Protest the long liners (which I have even seen at the Avalon bank) and the purse seiners. Those are the real culprits and indiscriminant killers.

I am really tired of people who have never fished trying to take away my right to fish. And by the way, I only keep what I am going to eat.

[ashley]

sick.

[Joel]

Absolute and complete waste.
Hopefully, the ignorance and wasteful nature of past generations will die off before the species which they deplete.
Sport fisherman are but a drop in the genocides bucket, but they could be a positive naturalist voice.
You could have been a real hero by reeling it in, videoing it, taking pictures and letting it go.
Instead we see crap like this.

[S.Stern]

wow. I hope you feel like a big man, now, huh.

I hope they protect all sharks so you can be arrested for this, cause that's what you deserve.

[Tee Kay]

The levels of methylmercury, an organic compound of mercury, in that shark would be so high due to its size and age that he would not be able to sell it on the market, that would be why they gave it away to homeless shelters.

[Carol Cotton]

This totally disgusts me. Get a clue, people ... Leave sharks, rays, whales, dolphins, and tunas in the oceans where they belong.

[Bruce Williams]

Okay, you caught it ... now what? You going to eat it? Didn't think so. But hey, you got your face in the paper for further depleting the almost-extinct apex predators of the ocean. Over ninety per cent of them gone, but what's just one more, especially a mature one. Oh yeah ... they take over thirty years to mature ... did you know that? Take a clue, guy ... the ocean cannot afford to lose "just one". When the ocean ecosystems totally collapse, and there are no more pelagics (look it up), and no more fisheries (less than 40 years from now), remember how you took just one more ... then hang your head in shame.

[Scott Cassell]

This is the act of an ignorant fool or a cowardly bully. Either way it is something to be completely ashamed of. How can this person NOT know that he just killed an endangered species facing extinction at a historically rapid pace?

I despise bullies. I despise cowards. Ignorance is no excuse.

Read a book, learn, stop acting out of ego driven self satisfaction. Think!

Absolutely disgusting.

[Deborah Bluangel]

I am disgusted to see that yet another beautiful shark has been taken from it's vital place in the ecosystem for a fisherman's selfishness. Reporting on this ecocide is irresponsible, people must start to change their views on sharks if the oceans are to survive beyond this century.

[Blue Planet Society]

Another mature, possibly pregnant, mako shark is removed from the marine food-chain for 'sport'. Hopefully there will come a time when we look back on photographs like these with horror and incomprehension that the selfishness of the human ego, and desire for praise, could destroy such beauty. What a sad waste of a magnificent animal.