Texas Fisherman Catches Scary Big Shark Near Texas Beach

If you're afraid of sharks, South Padre island might not be the place for you. The 2nd largest Hammerhead shark in Texas' history was just caught there.

South Padre island and the area around it are known for a lot of things including one of the worlds longest beaches, along with several islands. It's a major party and, (especially), Spring Break hot spot that, surprisingly, also offers lots of privacy and it has an awesome,  "Cancun on a budget" feel.  And, sharks ...

The Texas coast doesn't really see many Great White sharks but plenty of other shark species call the place home and a couple of record breaking sharks have been caught there. The guy who caught this Hammerhead, also once caught an 11' 8" Tiger Shark.

READ MORE: Great White Sharks Hate Texas

Despite a rough start to the day, Joe Gonzales had his lines out by 10:30am. Several hours later, around 7pm, one of his reels started going crazy.

Joe let the reel run a minute to set the hook and then the battle was on. He and  a couple of buddies fought the shark for 45 minutes before they even got their first look at it and it took about an hour overall to bring it to shore. Check it out ...

The sharks weight was estimated at 1,000 pounds and ... with a total length of 14 feet, 5 inchs ... it was only 1/4 inch under the current record. Joe tagged the shark, removed the hook and let it slip back into the Gulf. Standard practice, despite all that work.

“The tagging process, usually what we do is get, a fin clip that you put inside a file, you send, over to Corpus to research, the little classic tag you stick into the shark, and whenever somebody recaptures it, they have a number on it, so you can call, should let them know how big it is, how big it is now, and where you caught it,” Gonzales explained. - valleycentral.com

A ton, (literally), of sharks have been tagged in the Gulf and they can be tracked anytime, day or night.