HOLLYWOOD, FLA. (WSVN) - A group of NFL players caught a huge mako shark, Monday night, during a fishing trip off South Florida.
The three players will have quite a shark tale to tell their teammates when the season begins. “They said it was like the Super Bowl of fishing, ’cause it’s like a once-in-a-lifetime type of deal,” said Trent Brown, a lineman for the San Francisco 49ers.
The three friends hit the water, Monday, and returned to shore with a mako shark over 7 feet long and weighing 300 pounds.
It’s quite the catch, but the players said they expected to bring her home. “We said it. We said we would. We said we were gonna catch a shark,” said Antonio Morrison, a linebacker for the Indianapolis Colts. “We said it in the car, so we did it.”
But even if they knew it would happen, the ship’s captain, David Ide, knows how rare their catch truly is. “We very rarely catch them. I’ve been charter fishing for the last 15 years and only caught a handful of them,” he said. “I’ve caught like, I think, four in 15 years of charter fishing, and we go every single day of the week.”
The players went out Monday afternoon for a four-hour fishing session. They hooked some small fish first.
The mako didn’t bite until the very end. The professional athletes experienced firsthand the power of the shark.
“It took all three of them to reel it in, believe it or not,” Ide said. “They’re all big guys. They said they could do it by themselves, but it didn’t happen that way.”
After the hard work of bringing the shark on the boat, everyone on board celebrated the exceptional catch.
“It’s special for me just catching one, being a part of it,” said Neiron Ball, a linebacker for the Oakland Raiders.
“You have a bunch of variables in fishing. It all has to come together to make this happen,” said Ide.
The players plan on mounting the mako in their home.
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