Marine Gets Great White Shark, Drags It Onto Beach With His Bare Hands (VIDEO)
A Marine's great white shark catch on video shocked and surprised viewers. Jeff Fangman was in California off the Camp Pendleton coast Oct. 27 when his wife recorded him dragging the shark out of the beach waves.
The Marine who caught the great white shark initially didn't even realize what he had. The shark was attached to Fangman's fishing line and the stingray he had, but he didn't know because it was concealed by the waves. 25 minutes later, Fangman reeled in a great white shark.
"Seeing it in the water was just … it was almost mind blowing," Fangman told KGTV in San Diego. "It's taken several weeks for the whole ordeal to sink in."
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Fangman is an experienced fisherman who has caught sharks before, but never a great white.
"Bull sharks, tiger sharks, sandbar sharks, lemon sharks," he said. "Lo and behold, it ended up being a great white."
After Fangman brought the shark in, he posed with it and measured it: it turned out to be about 9-and-a-half feet long, which means it was probably female. Fangman also showed the camera the inside of the great white's mouth, which was ringed with rows of sharp teeth.
"I know it's just a beautiful creature, a great white. I was so shocked," he told CBS 8. "It's a big strong fish and it's like solid muscle. It really didn't move when it was on the beach."
Fangman, who is a gunnery master sergeant, showed his wife Aldrei and baby daughter the shark, but remembered to obey the law- it is illegal to keep a great white shark, even after catching it so close to shore.
The U.S. Marine then dragged the great white back into the waters, and after several minutes, it managed to swim back into the deeper Pacific Ocean waves.
Fangman said that wrestling the shark onto shore left him "exhausted." The entire ordeal took about 25 minutes.
