It’s looking to be a great white Christmas off the coast of South Carolina.
A fishing crew off Hilton Head Island reeled in two massive great white sharks last week ― the largest of which weighs an estimated 3,000 pounds.
Charter boat Capt. Chip Michalove, who captured both sharks with his crew from Outcast Sport Fishing, called the bigger shark the “largest White I’ve seen out there.”
“It happened so fast. We were talking about what to do with her and all the sudden she ripped out 400 yards of line,” he told The Island Packet. “She was so big I don’t think she even knew she was hooked.”
Unfortunately, he said, the shark escaped before the crew was able to tag her.
“We were just crushed, we were heartbroken and we almost went in,” Michalove told local outlet WJCL TV. “We almost said, ‘You know what, we’re calling it a day,’ but we got reset up and a few minutes later we got another one.”
A photo posted to Outcast Fishing Sports’ Facebook page shows the smaller of the two sea creatures being partially hauled out of the water. The crew attached a small sound-emitting device to the male shark, then released it.
South Carolina’s coast appears to be a popular hangout for great white sharks, according to OCEARCH, a group that tags and tracks the animals.
A 16-foot great white known as Mary Lee weighs nearly 3,500 pounds, and has been seen zigzagging in the waters between Charleston and Savannah, Georgia, in recent days.
Yeti, an 11-foot female great white, was also tracked last week off Savannah’s coast. And an 8-foot juvenile great white named Cisco was tracked near Myrtle Beach last week after moving south along the coast.
