Fort Lauderdale man
reels in 582-pound shark near beach
Alva
James-Johnson Staff Writer Posted November 22 2004
After wrestling for nearly three hours with a scalloped
hammerhead shark off South Beach, a Fort Lauderdale man reeled in
the 12-foot, 582-pounder Sunday not far from where people were
swimming.
"I might have to buy a house because I don't have a
wall to put this thing on," said Mark Farmer, 33, who caught the
shark while on a chartered fishing expedition. "I never caught
anything this big, so it's really cool."
Farmer
said he hooked the shark at about 10 a.m. while he and about four
other fishermen were on a shark fishing trip with Mark the Shark,
owner of a deep-sea gamefishing charter company for 35 years in
Miami.
"Immediately, the reels took off screaming because it
was pulling out lines so fast," Farmer said.
He sat in a
fighting chair, and reeled the shark in after about three hours, he
said. By Sunday night it was at a taxidermist, where it will be
turned into a trophy.
The charter company owner said the
hammerhead Farmer caught Sunday was one of the biggest he's ever
seen.
"I catch them all the time, but the size is very
unique," he said.
Alan Ogle caught a 994-pound hammerhead off
Sarasota on May 30, 1982, according to a Florida Fishing and
Wildlife Conservation Commission Web site.
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