Small 10 foot Great White Shark caught - and released - off Navarre Beach pier today

Video of three guys releasing the shark in the surf

Pensacola News Journal



The True Blue shark fishing team caught a 10-foot long, 650-pound great white shark off the pier, according to pier employee and True Blue fisherman Thomas Thielman. The rare catch took about an hour and a half to reel in.

"Well when we got the bite, we did our normal thing and let him eat, then we hooked him up and it was probably about an hour and 30 minute fight," Thielman said. "When we got the leader close, I personally grabbed the leader, and once we realized what it was, that's when everybody's eyes just blew up."

The team tagged and released the shark, and will send the information to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, which monitors marine life. The shark was alive and unharmed during the catch.

It isn't unusual for great white sharks to enter the Gulf of Mexico, but it's extremely rare to catch one — a fact not lost on the True Blue team.

“It is rare, it is absolutely rare,” Thielman said. “We don’t get that many here. We see sightings of them, but we never caught one. That’s the first one our team has caught. We put a tag on it, got all the measurements, and got a safe, clean release.”