Florida Fishermen Lands Massive 650-pound Thresher Shark

By Chelsea Bailey, CNN -- A leisurely day of sport fishing ended with an exhilarating struggle Sunday when a group of fishermen landed a massive thresher shark off the coast of Florida.

After two hours of fighting to reel in the 650-pound, 13-foot-long shark, Floridian Jason Fox, 30, landed the fish that he described Monday as simply "huge."

"This is really just a once-in-a-life

time fish," he said.

Fox caught the fish off the coast of Dania Beach, Florida, about five miles south of Fort Lauderdale.

The state record for the largest thresher shark was set in 1984 when a local fisherman caught a 544-pound shark near Destin, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

Fox and a group of friends chartered a sport fishing boat to celebrate a family friend's birthday. They were initially pleased with the day's catch of kingfish and tuna but were stunned by the final catch.

"We just went out for a fishing trip ... and at the end of the day the captain asked me if I wanted to catch a shark," Fox said. He added he's reeled in a 150-pound fish before, but never anything this big.

Fox caught the shark in 350 feet of water, CNN affiliate WSVN reported. Fox said he plans to mount it on his wall.

Thresher sharks -- named for their extremely long tails -- are found throughout the world in temperate to tropical seas.

Below opinions are no longer affiliated with CNN or WSVN, but are of my personal opinion only:

For the fishermen this is the greatest fishing story ever, but for the shark it was no fairytale ending.  What I fail to understand is why couldn't a photo be taken with the shark and then the shark be placed back in the waters to live another day?  All three thresher shark species have been recently listed as vulnerable to extinction by the World Conservation Union (IUCN).  Therefore, by allowing fishermen to still actively catch and kill these sharks for trophies is only adding to the threat.  Plus, sharks mature very late in life, and with the "larger/largest" sharks being targeted to catch, we are killing off the generation of sharks that have finally reached maturation and can produced the next generation.  The moral of this story is...if you are going to fish for sharks...take a photo and return the shark to the seas.