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01/19/2015 - Boat - Florida - No Injury

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alb
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Joined: Fri Jun 18, 2010 7:41 pm

01/19/2015 - Boat - Florida - No Injury

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Great White Shark Attack at Panama City Beach Florida - Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has confirmed the attack involved a great white

Great White Shark Attack at Panama City Beach Florida

Great White Shark Attacks Fishing Boat
The Florida captain had “never seen anything like it.”

Great White Shark Attacks Fishing Boat
A Panama City Beach charter boat captain might have thought he was in a scene from “Jaws” Monday when a great white shark attacked his trolling motor while he was about eight miles out in the Gulf of Mexico.

“He had the entire trolling motor in his mouth, and was moving it side to side, and it was shaking the boat,” Capt. Scott Fitzgerald told MyPanhandle.com following the encounter.

Fitzgerald of Madfish Chartersdescribed the encounter and shared some photos on his company’s Facebook page.

“Never seen anything like it,” wrote Fitzgerald who has been chartering for nearly a decade.

The Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission has confirmed the attack involved a great white, MyPanhandle noted. It is unclear at this time just how big the shark is, but it was able to shake the boat.

Great white shark encounters in the Gulf aren’t entirely unheard of, but they’re rare. The species prefers cooler waters, Dean Grubbs, of Florida State University’s Coastal and Marine Laboratory, explained to News-Presslast summer.

Grubbs noted that great white reports in the Gulf are more common in the cooler months, but he has noticed more reports in warmer months lately, as well.

“What surprises me is that they’re in warm water coming to the surface, because the water is pretty warm for a white shark,” Grubbs told the paper.

Great whites are normally found in “cool, coastal waters throughout the world,” National Geographic reports. The creatures are considered the largest predatory fish on the planet and can grow to an average of 15 feet in length.

Just why the great white attacked the boat or what it was doing in the Gulf remain mysteries, but the encounter is one that Fitzgerald is likely to never forget.

“It was very exciting for all of us,” he told MyPanhandle. “It really got our hearts beating hard.”

http://patch.com By Sherri Lonon (Patch Staff)
January 21, 2015 at 5:36am
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