Port Charlotte angler Dennis lands potential record with 1,280-pound shark
As the 14-foot great hammerhead shark he'd hooked was dragging his boat out 12 miles into the Gulf of Mexico
, Bucky Dennis looked over at a friend helping to drive the boat while he was fighting the giant predator."Hey," one said to another. "Isn't there a movie about this?"
Maybe so, but "Jaws" was fiction. The potential world-record shark Dennis landed Tuesday afternoon is very real.
Dennis, a Port Charlotte resident, finally landed the hammerhead near Boca Grande Pass on Tuesday just after 5 p.m., after fighting it for nearly six hours. The shark measured 14 feet, 6 inches and preliminarily weighed in at 1,280 pounds at the truck scale at the Gasparilla Island Bridge.
If the record is finalized -- it's under review by the International Game Fish Association -- it would surpass the mark of 991 pounds set by Allen Ogle of Punta Gorda in 1982.
As of Wednesday afternoon, Dennis had passed muster with the association -- his hammerhead was easily a record weight, and the specifications for the line used to catch it were met.
He caught the shark on a 130-pound test line using stingray as bait, with aid from anglers Don Lambert, Larry McLean and Jimmy Willis.
Dennis and Lambert both said there are bigger sharks still in Boca Grande Pass. Dennis assisted one 8 1/2-hour fight for an even larger hammerhead two weeks ago, but it got away.
"It was back in the pass the next day eating tarpon," Dennis commented.
"There's one that's 16 feet still alive," Lambert said. "The legendary (shark nicknamed) Hitler is still alive at 22 feet. We must have caught his child.":biglaugh:
Capt. Andy Whitbread caught a 750-pound hammerhead two weeks ago in Boca Grande Pass, a world record for 80-pound test line.
The largest shark ever caught was a 2,664-pound great white caught off the coast of South Australia in 1959.
Even though he'd conquered hammerheads to a degree, Dennis is very aware of how dangerous they are, even after they've been caught.
"It's fun hooking them, but if you get too close, they will bite," Dennis said. "I had one try to eat my trolling motor -- he inhaled my whole trolling motor, shook it once or twice, then let it go.
"They are mean and will bite. And whatever they bite, they will bite off."
Dennis opted to donate the shark to Mote Marine Laboratory and Mote Aquarium in Sarasota for research and display purposes.
"It's a huge fish," spokeswoman Nadine Slimak remarked. "We hope to use it as an exhibit to educate people about animals."
The shark was transferred to A.P. Bell Fishhouse in Cortez, near Bradenton, where it would be frozen -- Mote Aquarium doesn't own a freezer large enough to house the hammerhead. Scientists discovered the shark was a female -- probably pregnant -- and weighed it at 1,262 pounds, a measurement that reflected lost water weight. The shark's hammer measured 3 feet across.
After landing the shark, Dennis took the shark to the Gasparilla Island Bridge tollbooth, which has a scale to measure trucks.
Seeing the massive maneater on the back of a trailer was a bit of a surprise to toll-taker Wayne Brown, who had no advance warning that the creature would be on its way.
Oh, my God, Brown thought. What is this?
Strangely, it wasn't a first for the weigh station scale, which had previously been used for alligators. Weighing the shark drew a crowd of about 75 people to gawk at the hammerhead, including a sheriff's deputy who briefly stopped by to see what the commotion was about.
The anglers considered pulling the shark off the trailer onto the scale, then settled for weighing the shark on the trailer, unloading the shark in the water, weighing the empty trailer for the weight differential.
The result told Dennis what he already knew -- he had a record shark and one that sure impressed Brown.
"It had a hell of a big mouth with all sorts of sharp teeth," Brown said. "It was very impressive; you could see the gills and everything. It looked like a smooth leather, like velvet leather."
The record was a kind of validation to Dennis, who along with teammate Ryan Rowan had the Day 1 lead in the recent Oh Boy! Oberto Redfish Cup in Punta Gorda. But the team was disqualified after Day 2 when Dennis admitted to running a pair of shark charters the week before, an unintentional violation of tournament prefishing rules.
But catching a world-record hammerhead is more than just a consolation prize.
"This is something I can keep for a while, hopefully," Dennis said. "There's not too many people I'd worry about to catch them. Larry Mack (McLean) is one I'd worry about. Otherwise, there's not many people to worry about."
By ROB SHORE
Sports Writer
http://sun-herald.com/NewsArchive2/0525 ... tp1ch5.htm
I kinda wish they would've let it go. 
But none the less a big fish. 
