Monday, October 15, 2007

Fisherman describes battle with monster mako shark


DESTIN, FLORIDA – Adlee Bruner’s fishing story is about the big one that didn’t get away.

Bruner and five friends headed out Saturday morning on a charter boat, hoping to catch some grouper to enter in the annual Destin Fishing Rodeo.

Instead, Bruner landed a gargantuan 844.4-pound mako shark, setting a new record for the decades-old tournament.

“It was tense,” Bruner, 47, said about the fight to land the 11-foot shark with a mouthful of huge teeth. “I’ve fished for 40 years. I’ve never see one that big.”

Bruner and his fishing buddies were on the 52-foot charter boat “Twilight” with Capt. Robert Hill of Destin and deckhand Eric Hayles.

"We were precisely 70 miles southwest of Destin,” Hill said. “In beautiful blue water. It was about 280 feet deep.”

The fishermen first noticed the big mako because it kept eating grouper and scamp they had hooked.

“I told them to bring up their rigs,” Hill said.

When the rigs came up, the big shark surfaced just behind the boat.

“A huge shark,” Bruner said.

“That was an incredible sight,” Hill said. “You sort of run around not knowing what to do, it was so big."

Word spread quickly from the small fishing hamlet of Destin, and the NYC Mayors Office had issued a statement within several hours.

"It's bad enough we have guns, and knifes, and fire extinguishers coming up from the southern states," Deputy Mayor Doctorov told reporters, "what we will specifically and with great prejudice aforethought ban is Florida sending killer sharks to Broadway, and we call for other cities and states to join us in prohibiting such actions."

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