MIAMI – For his 50th birthday, Paul Raines and his wife traveled to Miami from the United Kingdom for some shark fishing.
"I always wanted to go shark fishing," said Raines.
The couple and Mark the Shark believes they hooked a great white shark less than a mile and a half off the coast of Miami Beach on Thursday.
"There was one big bang, one big take, which at first we thought maybe a sailfish," said Raines. "Got right to the boat, got it right there. My wife got some photographs on her camera, obviously."
"All of a sudden, one of my crew guy says, 'Hey, there's a big shark down there,'" said Mark the Shark.
Raines said he tried reeling in the shark for 45 minutes.
"I was getting tired," he said.
Scientists have been tracking great white sharks that have been spotted off Florida's coast.
"They're running out of food offshore right now, so they're coming inside and looking for schools of bait," said Mark the Shark. "He's still swimming out there, somewhere along the beach, so maybe we'll see him tomorrow."