SARASOTA COUNTY, Fla. – A Florida man caught a whopping 13-foot-long tiger shark late last month during a fishing trip off the coast of Sarasota County.
Mason Carson told News 6 that the catch happened on July 26 when he went fishing with some friends. However, this isn’t the first time he snagged a shark.
“Typically, we get a lot of bull sharks, a lot of blacktips. During the winter time, we’ll get a lot of sandbar sharks, and occasionally, we’ll get tigers and hammers — but not typically tigers this big,” Carson explained.
[CLICK IN THE MEDIA PLAYER BELOW TO WATCH CARSON REEL IN THE SHARK]
There was another incident a couple of years ago where he managed to reel in a roughly 9-foot-long bull shark. But this tiger shark was the first time he snagged one this big.
“It was definitely a surprise,” he said. “We had quite a few rods and reels out at that point, and the rod that I actually caught the tiger shark on was kind of (for) smaller fish and smaller sharks. I had smaller bait put out... and it just so happened that the smallest reel and the smallest bait got picked up.”
Carson assured that — after taking some pictures and video of the shark — he released the shark back into the water, just as they do with their other shark catches.
[CLICK IN THE MEDIA PLAYER BELOW TO WATCH CARSON SWIM WITH THE SHARK AFTER THE CATCH]
After catching the 13-foot-long shark, though, Carson made a bet with a friend that he could make it on the news — thus sparking a call to News 6.
“I bet in the Wawa parking lot with a buddy. He bet me 100 bucks that I couldn’t get on the news with my tiger shark,” Carson said. “He was scrolling through Instagram and seeing a guy had a saw fish on the news, and he bet me 100 bucks that I couldn’t get on the news for my tiger shark.”
If you’d like to follow more of Carson’s fishing adventures, you can do so by checking out his Instagram at tarzan.941.
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