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A 329.2-pound bull shark has scooped first prize at the 73rd annual Destin Fishing Rodeo in Florida.
The enormous bull shark was caught by Shelby Wagner 30 miles off the coast of Florida and is the largest shark weighed in the last twenty years of the annual fishing contest, News Channel 8 reported.
What makes Wagner's catch even more extraordinary is it marks her first entry into the contest. Wagner described how, after watching the weigh-ins at the contest and spotting a 226-pound bull shark on October 15, she and her friends decided to go shark hunting themselves.
"Every day after work in October go down and watch the weigh-in and get a beer and that type of thing but this is the first year I have participated in it," Wagner told the news channel. "We got lucky because one of our friends, we had some friends who were actually out diving, and they spotted the shark that we ended up catching."
Wagner said she is new to saltwater fishing, but was assisted by Captain Kyle Howard and his wife. Together, in under an hour, the trio managed to reel the bull shark in.
"I still didn't believe how big it was going to be until we got it in the boat," she added.
Wagner's massive bull shark won her the shark fishing award when the winners of the 73rd annual Destin Fishing Rodeo, held every year at AJ's Oyster Bar, were announced on October 31.
While it's clear that Wagner's bull shark is no minnow, it's still dwarfed by the largest bull shark on record. The International Game Fish Association says that the largest bull shark caught on rod and reel weighed 771 pounds and was captured near Cairns, Australia.
Even this is smaller than that bull shark spotted by University of Miami shark researcher Neil Hammerschlag. In 2012, Hammerschlag observed a bull shark that he estimated could weigh up to 1000 pounds.
The Daily Mail reported that Hammerschlag and his team brought the 10-foot long female bull shark aboard his boat so that its tremendous size could be recorded, before setting it free into the waters around the Florida Keys.
According to National Geographic, bull sharks typically grow between 7 and 11.5 feet, with a weight of up to 500 pounds.
Bull sharks are highly aggressive and live in high-population areas such as around shorelines. They will also venture inland via rivers and tributaries, and they can exist in fresh water and brackish waters.
As a result of this, National Geographic says many experts consider bull sharks to be one of the most dangerous sharks to humans.
Florida Museum lists the bull shark as one of the "big three" in terms of shark attacks, alongside great white sharks, and tiger sharks.
From 1580 to the present-day, according to the Florida Museum, there have been 888 recorded unprovoked shark attacks. Bull sharks were identified as being the species responsible for 117 of these attacks. Of these incidents, 25 proved fatal to the victim.
This puts the bull shark just behind the tiger shark with 131 attacks and 34 fatalities. The most deadly shark according to this data regarding unprovoked attacks is the great white shark which was identified in 333 attacks, 52 of which were fatal.
Some bull shark attacks are attributed to the fact that as they cruise swallow or brackish waters for fish and dolphins, their visions is impaired and they will often mistake humans for these prey animals.
But, it isn't just the bull shark that is a threat to humans. Our activities also threaten this shark.
The Florida Museum says they are routinely caught in fisheries. Its tendency to live in estuaries and inshore regions, close to human populations, also makes the bull shark vulnerable to human impact. Globally, the bull shark is often hunted for food, and is one of the species commonly used in shark fin soup.
These factors have contributed to Bull sharks being listed as Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission allows bull shark fishing in state and federal waters but places a limit of one shark per person each day and a limit of two sharks in one vessel.
