Massive shark weighing more than 61 pounds is spotted off Devon coast
A MASSIVE shark weighing more than 61 pounds has been spotted off the Devon coast.
Kyle Bishop had been fly fishing for pike and grey mullet when he saw the monster.
He snagged the tope using the gear he’d been fishing with all spring and summer, and was using a whole mackrel hook bait.
Kyle managed to wrangle the shark to the North Devon shore, where he’d been fishing from the rocky coastline.
DevonLive reported the area had always been known as a good spot to catch sharks, with three tope previously holding the British Record.
The largest landed to date was landed off the coast of the Pembrokeshire coastline.
It weighed a whopping 80 pounds.
It’s not unusual for sharks to be spotted of UK beaches.
Last month a huge shark was seen by shocked holidaymakers just meters from kids off a popular beach.
To the horror of Carmel Richardson, who was enjoying a jaunt on her friend’s boat at Gwynedd, Wales, a massive creature appeared below them.
A fin, belonging to a shark, could be seen above the water as it swam close to several kids on an inflatable dingy.
In the clip, the tourists are amazed to capture the rarely seen marine animal, and Carmel shouted: “Oh my God.
“See the size of that.”
Luckily, the children in close proximity to the suspected basking shark were quickly pulled back to their boat.
But Carmel, from Crosby, Merseyside, told NorthWalesLive she was honoured to have witnessed “a once-in-a-lifetime experience”.
She explained the boat was only just outside the safe-swim zone, marked by yellow buoys.
“The sea was quite quiet – there weren’t many boats on the water – when my friend Sylia Heath saw something and asked what it was,”added the 57-year-old.
“I said it was probably a dolphin. As we got closer, my son Stephen, who was on a jet ski, said, “That’s not a dolphin, that’s a shark!”
“It’s not something you expect to see near a beach in Wales.
“The fin was much bigger than a dolphin’s and when we got closer we could see the size of its body.”
What is a tope?
Tope sharks can grow up to 195cm in length, weigh up to 99 pounds and live up to 50 years, according to Wildlife Trusts.
The big fish is long and slender shark with a grey upper body and a white belly.
It has two dorsal fins and a distinctive notched tail.
They feed on a variety of fish species but will also take crustaceans or cephalopods if the opportunity arises.
Tagging studies have shown that Tope can travel huge distances and some individuals tagged in the UK have later been found as far away as the Canary Islands.
There has never been any record of an unprovoked Tope attack on humans, so no need to fear this elegant elasmobranch.