Fly Fishing For Great White Sharks

A San Diego angler catches a 6-foot juvenile great white on a fly rod

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If he didn’t have the video to prove it, it’d seem like the ultimate big-fish story: A San Diego fisherman accidentally caught a juvenile great white shark on a fly rod while fishing off the coast of La Jolla. Taking a great white shark in California is illegal, so the fisherman let the shark go. But not before capturing video proof:

Does it strike anyone else as fishy that the man who caught the shark, Jeff Patterson, just happens to be a director of sales for reel manufacturer Abel Automatics? Seems like a pretty fantastic advertising coincidence to me.

I’ll say—I bet the shark was in on the deal from the start.

—Ted Alvarez

Great white shark caught by La Jolla fisherman (LA Times)