Watch: 16-foot great white shark caught off Hilton Head
HILTON HEAD, S.C. (WSAV) – As the waters off Hilton Head Island warm up, charters aren’t just spotting more sharks – they’re seeing some of the rarest.
This week charter Captain Chip Michalove caught something you only see on Shark Week – a 3,000-pound 16-foot great white.
“There’s nothing like it. I mean jumping out of an airplane, bungee jumping, the adrenaline rush, it’s amazing,” Michalove said.
Michalove owns Outcast Sport Fishing, and set out Monday to catch a great white.
“At 4:30 in the morning, I got a text message from two of my crew members saying they were sick,” he said. “So it was just me and one other guy and I was thinking, ‘Maybe we should just postpone it to another day.’”
But something in him said to give a shot.
First, a 10-foot great white passed. They tried to hook it, but it got away.
Michalove said he was just about to give up when a 16-footer showed up.
“A 3000-pound animal is massive. People don’t realize just one wag of the tail can pool a 26-foot boat at that kind of clip,” he said. “After we started fighting this thing we kind of realize that it was just too much.”
He called a nearby boat for backup.