yeah, this dumb azz killed this pregnant female about 45min south of my house. I mean really, how long does it take for a fish to get that big? Not many of those sized sharks around anymore, thanks to morons like this guy. No reason to kill a mature Great Hammer like that!
Big sharks aggrigate to that area to eat tarpon. You can see them in the water, especially if you hook a poon. You can site cast to them. Believe me, this was no great acomplishment.
I agree about CP&R.......I just don't understand why people have to kill big fish.......like said above........how long did it take for them to attain that size. What a wase!
Considering it's a hammer, maybe it didn't survive the fight. If you felt a freight train on the end of your line, wouldn't you try your best to fight it in to get a glimpse of it? At that point, it might've been too late for the shark?
those sharks are awesome. Last august I was snorkeling off of smathers beach in Key West Florida in about 3 feet of water and a 4-5 foot hammerhead swam about by me about 15-20 feet away from me. My little sister was next to me and climbed on my back! I was basically in shock that I got to see one of these beautiful sharks in the wild. He didnt even acknowledge that I was there even though the water is crystal clear. But a hammerhead of the size in the picture would scare the crap out of me!!!
I have only seen a few pics of hammers caught from a kayak. One of any size would be one hell of a fight.
The large one in the pic is a monster. I remember when the pics and story hit the shark boards. Lot of pissed of people because it was not released. Good to see more people starting to understadn that large sharks popultion are in trouble.
That shark was given to science, and the angler had a large report. It was published in a number of magizines, few of the were ones I get. He also worte up a detailed report on some message baords. From what I remember he said they catch and release 99% of the time. Thus shark in question had just took a few tarpon from a few boats in the area. They decided to catch it, I do not recall if they wanted to catch it to keep it away from the tarpons. Or if they knew it was large wnough for a record. Either way not uncommon for a few shark fishermen to be in amoung the tarpon fishermen in Florida.
I happened to die during the fight, this was due to the small boat there were in. And the nature of hammer heads.
It needs to be understood by any of us that like to catch sharks. That some will die during the fight. This is true for many game fish. Hammer heads tend to be the sharks that die most often during the fight, but it can happen to any species of shark. This is the chance we take when fishing for any fish.
As much as I love to catch sharks, I would of definitely practiced C&R with that one. What a waste of a magnificent specimen. I understand that some fish die during the struggle, but I would rather take a couple of pics and then cut the line rather than to reel it in!
I looked at the pictures before reading the replies on this thread. After about the 3rd picture I started thinking, why in the world are they pulling this hammerhead into their boat? Each pic was worse until the last pic of the shark on land. Then I read the replies here and was relieved all of you felt the same as I did.