Pastor Ed Young catches great white shark, fulfilling dream of a lifetime
Pastor Ed Young of Fellowship Church in Grapevine, Texas, fulfilled a 50-year dream last week when he caught a great white shark weighing nearly 2,000 pounds.
“During Christmas break, I fulfilled a 50-year dream,” Young wrote on his Facebook page on Wednesday, referring to an 11-foot great white shark a few miles off the coast of Hilton Head Island in South Carolina.
“I caught a Great White Shark on rod and reel off of the South Carolina coast with (Chip Michalove, the owner of) Outcast Sport Fishing who is the only captain who has a federal permit to target, tag and handle Great Whites.”
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Michalove, who is known as super-great-white-shark-whisperer, estimated that “this beast [weighed] at nearly 2,000 pounds.”
Michalove told Fits News that the sun was starting to set and he was wrapping up the charter trip when the first monstrous fish tugged the line.
“The coolest part was being out there in the flattest ocean conditions you could ask for battling the baddest fish on the planet,” Outcast Sport Fishing wrote on its Facebook page. “I was with a pastor and we were talking how this is probably the closest you can get to heaven without crossing over.”
The first shark managed to spit out the hook but the pastor, his friend Dave Clark and Michalove decided to wait. And they were rewarded.
Forty-five minutes later, they hooked another 11-foot male shark. “We usually get one chance a day to hook a great white. Occasionally we get two, sometimes even three. But very rarely do you see another swim-up 45 minutes later,” Michalove was quoted as saying. “Seeing another that fast afterwards is an indication they’re all back.”
Looking at the positioning of the hook, the fish could have escaped in the first two minutes, Michalove said on Facebook.
“[It] helps when you have a pastor to even the odds,” he added.
Michalove told For The Win Outdoors, “He (Young) called me the next day and I asked him if he too feels like he was run over. But it’s all worth it; the fish swims off healthy with a full belly and we get the experience you only see on ‘Discovery’ or ‘Nat Geo.’”
