iStock(SAN FRANCISCO) — A group of people sport fishing in the San Francisco Bay over the weekend got the shock of their life when a great white shark snagged their bait and dragged the boat around for two miles.
Joey Gamez, owner and captain of Golden State Sportfishing, told ABC News that he and six others set off Saturday morning with the intent of catching sevengill and soupfin sharks.
The boat was near the infamous Alcatraz Island around 11 a.m. when a line that Gamez cast began to pull. The experienced fisherman assumed he was fighting a large sevengill, so the group pulled the anchor up and let the fish pull the 26-foot boat around for a bit while they tried to reel it in, he said.
“Once we got it to the top, we realized what kind of fish it was,” Gamez said.
The shark dragged the boat for about an hour and two miles before Gamez carefully cut the line, he said.
Gamez estimated the shark to have measured somewhere between 6 to 8 feet.
“I really didn’t get a good look at it,” he said. “I was kind of worried about getting it off the hook.”
Video posted to Facebook shows a fisherman struggling with the fishing pole for several minutes before the group realized what they had snagged.
“First time I’ve had to pull an anchor on a shark,” Gamez said in the video. “…Not sure what it is, but it’s a big one.”
Minutes later, another fisherman took over to try and reel in the behemoth. Once the great white surfaced, they exclaimed in excitement before stating that they had to “let it go.”
The great white bobbed along the side of the boat for several seconds before Gamez cut the line and it swam away with the bait.
The 42-year-old said he has been fishing in the area since he was a “little kid” and has never seen a great white in the bay, he said, adding that the whole group was “stunned” at the catch.
“Everybody was just amazed,” Gamez said.
Last week, the San Mateo County Sheriff’s Office issued an alert of great white sharks that were spotted nearby off the coast of Half Moon Bay, ABC San Francisco station KGO-AM reported.
Gamez went back out on the water on Sunday but did not spot any more great whites, he said.
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