Monster hammerhead caught off WA beach could be record size
A COUPLE of Perth fisherman reeled in an incredibly large hammerhead shark off Pages beach in Geraldton Western Australia last weekend.
Regular shark fisherman Jamie Dennis and his mate Mitchell Palmer even surprised themselves when they dragged in the mammoth 3.85 metre catch following a 90-minute struggle on Saturday night.
“Cant believe this day i (sic) caught my dream shark my first ever greater hammer, Mr Dennis wrote on Facebook.
“Caught it on the smallest gear possible (not intentionally) and with 65lb xtremebraid. The fight was around an hour and 30mins.”
Mr Dennis is a 25-year-old concreter who has been shark fishing for the past year. He says he was told by US fishing supplies company Xtremebraid that the catch may have been an “unofficial” record for line class weight, reports Seven News.
However the boys can’t claim the record because they didn’t measure the shark’s girth before they released it back into the water. It was followed on a kayak for about 100 metres before it “disappeared into the deep,” the boys said.
“I can’t claim the record because I didn’t measure its girth,” Mr Dennis said.
A Florida fisherman named Josh Emerson currently holds the official record in 130lb line class with a 3.68 metre long great hammerhead, according to the International Land Based Shark Fishing Association.
Hammerhead sharks can grow up to six metres in length.
The WA boys may not be in the record books but they seem pretty happy with their 15 minutes of fame.
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Originally published as Monster shark ‘an unofficial record’