For about three hours it was a question of who caught who after Captain Joe Maisano of Treasure Island, Fla., and fisherman Fab Marchese of Ontario, Canada hooked a great white shark about 30 miles off the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.
The fishermen told ABC News that once the shark took the bait, they pulled up the boat's anchor and then let the great white drag them around for the next three hours.
"It was like a slow steady pull, I mean great whites are not very fast sharks, so it was a slow, solid weight," Maisano said. "He was anywhere from 16-18 feet long and it could have weighed from 2,500-4,000 pounds. That is what the experts are telling us."
Sighting of these sharks are very rare. "I had one of my buddies about five or six years ago, who caught one on a long line and that was the last one I know about, that was caught along here," said Maisano, co-owner of fishing charter company Go Fast Fishing Charters for the past 12 years along with his father Sam. Neither of them, however, had ever seen a great white before.
"It looked like a submarine. With a tail," said Maisano.
The fishermen said they had to let the shark go (but not before they took lots of photos and a video) because they are a prohibited species. "You are not even allowed to bring it in the boat, you have to leave it in the water," Maisano said. If a great white is killed, there could be a fine of $25,000-$40,000.
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