Massive bull shark caught outside mouth of Mobile Bay

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BON SECOUR, Ala. (WKRG) — If a picture is worth a thousand words, “the girth of this thing was ginormous,” that might be a good start for what Capt. David Stiller with Apex Shark Fishing Charters caught on a recent fishing trip.

“We were fishing straight off of Mobile Bay, right off Dixey Bar, 3.5 miles out,” Stiller recalled.

We had our long-line gear out, and were hauling our gear in, and were getting pieces and pieces of sharks. Head after head was all that was left on the hooks,” Stiller said.

That told him something bigger was in the water, so they hooked up some bait and set a buoy out to see what would happen.

An hour or so later, “We looked at our plotter, and this thing is moving, and we’re saying, ‘Uh-oh.’ It wasn’t moving as fast as a tiger shark, but I knew it was pretty big, moving a 12-pound chunk of lead around.”

Once they caught up to the buoy, there was a 20-minute fight, and it took everything they could do to get it on the boat.

“Between the hydraulics and the three of us, we were finally able to squeeze it, pull the fins in get it through the door,” Stiller said.

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The catch, while impressive, will not break the state record of 494 pounds because it was caught on commercial fishing gear. Still, Dave and the crew are kind of famous.

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