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Archives: Shark at Boca Grande lends credence to fish tales

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By FRANK SARGEANT | The Tampa Tribune

Published: June 3, 1998

Each year when the tarpon come to Boca Grande Pass, they bring with them followers of tarpondom, the giant sharks that prey on them. Since the fish average 6 feet long, it's no surprise the sharks that feed on them are enormous.

For years, it was rumored there was a hammerhead somewhere near 20 feet long gulping down 100-pounders like sardines. The fish grew in legend and was given a name signifying both the awe and anger it provoked in anglers who saw it gobble up their hooked fish — Old Hitler.

Biologists say it's unlikely any hammerhead attains such length, but when you see a fish larger than a man consumed in a couple of bites, it inspires hyperbole.

Be that as it may, there are some very impressive hammerheads at Boca Grande, as captain Dave Markett can attest after his experience last Friday.

His angler for the day, Tony Cucinatta of Clearwater, hooked a jumbo silver king on one of the custom-made "breakaway" jigs that are now the favored bait of most tarpon experts in the pass. After an 1-hour, 25-minute battle, the fish was at boatside. Markett reached for the leader, then saw a huge shadow rising out of the green depths.

The tarpon sprinted away from the boat, but wasn't quite fast enough. The shark knocked the 150-pound fish into the air as if it were a 2-ounce sardine.

The chase proceeded around the boat, and a few seconds later the line broke. But the tarpon, sensing there was safety in the nearest cover, darted under Markett's flats boat and stayed there, tight up against the hull.

The shark made a couple of circles around the boat, looking for the fish.

"He rolled up on one side and stuck that big eye out. And I swear he was looking inside the boat to see if the fish was there," Markett said.

The tarpon, meanwhile, was doing a good job of keeping the boat between himself and the shark. The shark apparently could smell the fish but not see it, so it attacked the only nearby moving object — the prop of the boat!

"I had the motor in gear, ahead slow, to keep up with the fish," Markett said. "All at once I hear the motor bog down and look back there, and he's trying to eat my lower unit."

The tarpon, meanwhile, took advantage of the diversion and darted away into the depths. The shark let go of the motor after a few chomps, then swam directly under the still-turning prop.

"When he came out the front, his head was all cut up from the prop and his dorsal was flopped over to one side from a big cut. But the amazing thing to me was that we got a pretty good measure of his size when he went under the boat, and it seemed to me that his head came out the front while you could still see the end of the tail out the back," Markett said.

Markett's Pro-Line is 18 feet, 6 inches long.

The shark was still in eating mode, but now his prey was gone. Fins spread out, he passed back under Markett's boat, then spotted the hull of a dark blue flats boat nearby and apparently mistook it for the tarpon.

He came up on the surface and charged at full speed toward the other skiff, which was only about 30 feet from Markett's boat.

The couple fishing in that rig had their eye on the action, and when the 3-foot fin started their way, they fire-walled the throttle and got out of the way fast.

The shark then disappeared into the 72-foot depths of the pass.

"I've seen a lot of sharks and had a lot of them chase my fish, but never anything of that size," Markett said. "It might not have been Old Hitler, but if it wasn't, I wouldn't want to see the real thing."

This article was originally published on June 3rd, 1998.

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