A 12-year-old boy named Campbell Keenan was out on a sport fishing trip with his family about a mile off Port Everglades.
According to family testimony, they were fishing for bait fish, but the bait in the water was too big.
“Then all of a sudden, it went down a lot”, Campbell told the news station. “It just ran, darted. It went about 300 yards.”
After reeling for 45 minutes trying to catch what was up to that point “a very big fish,” but by the time the family realized it, they had caught a great white shark.
“We actually tagged it, and they named it, and it’s like adopting a fish,” Paolucci said. “Then they released it back into the water.”
The family named the shark “Jan Jan” as a way of joking with the 12-year-old’s sister’s field hockey coach, who was also on the boat.
According to local media, they claim it is rare to catch a great white shark in Florida’s warm waters.
“It really hurt my arm or my hand because I had to hold on really tight,” Campbell said. The 12-year-old boy will have a great story to tell when he returns home.
With information from WTVJ
