Island Days. The Way I See It: Jaws

Usually, the afternoon walk on the beach is quiet, peaceful, and uneventful. But yesterday was different.

The fight had just begun

It took two guys to bring it in

On the night of the "Chili CookOff" I met some hardcore shark fishermen, Ronie and Nic, that were camping out on the beach with all their shark fishing gear. They kayaked the lines out a good ways into the gulf, secured the poles, and waited. I was anxious to get back the next morning to see if they'd had any luck. Unfortunately, no hungry sharks were biting that night. But they were yesterday.
After watching the Derby, I went to the beach, only to find my friends were back, and they'd hooked the big one. They'd been reeling it in for the pas two hours.

This is one big shark!

They'd, gotten to the beach about noon, (Obviously, catching a shark took precedence over watching the most exciting 2 minutes in sports!), and at 5:30, it hit. A tiger shark, almost 12 feet long! Definitely the catch of the day. It was around 7:30 when I got to the beach, so they had already been fighting with this fish for a couple hours. I didn't want to miss the action, but figured I had enough time to throw the ball awhile, for the dogs. As it turned out, I had time to go home and eat dinner! I took a few pictures of them pulling in their catch, and went on home.
I left my phone number with them, and told them to call me when they got the fish close enough to see it, and I'd take some pictures for them. There's a sandbar not too far from shore, and it seemed every time they got that shark to the sandbar, it would run out another 300 yards. After about a half hour, I could see this was going to take some time. But they weren't going to give up.

Pulling it in.

"Open wide"

I finally went back to check on them around 10:30 p.m., figuring they'd forgotten to call me. But there they were, still fighting to get the shark in. So once again, I said, "call me".
So I waited. Finally, around midnight, I got the call. The shark was in sight. I rushed down to the beach, with my camera, just in time to see about 10 people pulling the shark to shore. I'd never seen such a fish caught off of the beach. And it was definitely the biggest shark the "shark slayer" had ever caught.
After they got the measurements, 11 feet, 7 inches long, and 62 inches around the girth, and pictures were taken, the shark was pulled back out to sea. Ronie was pleased that the shark survived the ordeal. He wants the thrill of catching it again. And no matter how long it takes, don't doubt the will of a serious fisherman. Or, the will of a fish that doesn't want to be caught either.