Californian man hooks massive shark on a fishing trip
Its face might resemble a tuna fish, but it's actually a massive thresher shark one man caught off the coast of Southern California.
The 250-kilogram shark was the catch of the day and possibly a lifetime for one Oceanside fisherman over the weekend.
It was a giant thresher shark. Source: Facebook/John Lish
The six-metre fish was wrangled by John Lish who, like everyone else, could not believe giant catch and the mammoth fight he had to put in to get in the boat.
"Everybody was like, 'Is that real?'" he told local Fox 5. "I was like, 'Yeah, it's real.' I couldn’t believe it.
The shark measure about 6m. Source: Facebook/John Lish
And it weighed about 550kg. Source: Facebook/John Lish
"I haven't really caught a shark that big, but, it's a long, long fight, especially the way they hooked it."
Fellow angler Ryan Cicero was equally astounded by the whopping fish after pulling the shark in for the catch.
Threshers are not known to be aggressive toward humans. Source: Facebook/John Lish
"They're thinking it's a giant giant just coming through… It's something you'd never experience."
The mighty catch has been the talk the town – and with a tail measuring close to three metres, it's a tale that will likely be told many times over.
John Lish will have the tale to tell for many years to come. Source: Facebook/John Lish
Lish's fish was on the larger end of the thresher shark scale.
And while they can be powerful and often have caudal fins that grow as almost as long as the fish itself, threshers are not known to be threatening to humans.