Fisherman catches 14.5 ft. hammerhead shark on SPI

SOUTH PADRE ISLAND, Texas (ValleyCentral) — What started off as a normal shark fishing day ended with a memorable catch.

Local fisherman Joe Gonzales ventured out on Friday with friends and family to South Padre Island for a shark fishing trip.

Gonzales, along with his friends and fiancée, headed out to the beach; however, they ran into some issues along the way.

"I started having issues with my 4x4 on my truck, then the wheel hub on my jet skis started messing up," he explained. "Eventually we got down the beach, where I wanted to fish at, unloaded the jet skis, ran the baits out probably around 10:30 in the morning."

At approximately 7:30 p.m., Gonzales said he heard his 80 wide reel start "screaming," and saw that the fishing line started "going off like crazy."

"We let it run for about a minute, set the hook, and the fight was on," he said.

Gonzales said the rod began bending straight towards the water, and at that moment, he knew it was going to be a big shark.

"Maybe about like 45 minutes in, we saw the first glimpse of the shark, a big olé dorsal fin came out of the water, so that's when I knew it was going to be a big hammerhead," Gonzales said.

Gonzales told ValleyCentral it took him and a couple of his friends approximately an hour to bring the shark to shore.

Once Gonzales and his team were able to get the shark to shore, dehook the fish, tag it, and measure it, they learned that the shark was a whopping 14.5 feet long.

They immediately took the opportunity to take photos and videos of the incredible catch of the day, before releasing the shark back to its home.

Gonzales added that, due to the shark's size, he thinks it is approximately 30 years old and near the 1,000-pound mark.

"I wasn't expecting to catch a shark that big, I mean it's just so exciting," he said. "I mean, catching any Hammerhead over 14 feet, it's very difficult to let him go, since they basically fight till they die. So, I mean, having a quick release on it is just like a cherry on top, just watching it swim away."

Gonzales told ValleyCentral that the shark was tagged in case another fisherman recaptures it to help marine life research.

"The tagging process, usually what we do is get, a fin clip that you put inside a file, you send, over to Corpus to research, the little classic tag you stick into the shark, and whenever somebody recaptures it, they have a number on it, so you can call, should let them know how big it is, how big it is now, and where you caught it," Gonzales explained.

Before this catch, Gonzales had 12 years of shark fishing experience and had caught an 11.8 ft—Tiger shark.