Hour-Long Battle As Angler Reels In 57st Shark

A Florida fisherman has reeled in an 805lb (365kg) mako shark along a Gulf Coast beach.

Joey Polk says he battled the 11ft (3.4m) shortfin mako for about an hour before he managed to get it to shore.

Mr Polk and his cousin Earnie Polk, already record-holding anglers in the world of land-based shark fishing, had hoped to keep their latest catch under wraps.

But a curious passer-by snapped a photo of the large mako stuffed into the back of Joey Polk's pickup truck at a petrol station, and the image went viral on social media.

Despite the publicity, the Polk cousins refuse to reveal where the shark was caught, saying they want to keep people from flocking to the secret location.

Joey Polk told WKRG-TV: "The more people that know about it, the more people that crowd our beach, the more people that come out and fish with hundreds of people swimming - that's not what we want."

Earnie Polk said he and his cousin tag and release about 95% of the sharks they catch.

The mako, however, was apparently too weak to swim back out, prompting the cousins to take it home.

They told the Pensacola News Journal that they planned to share the nearly 270kg of meat.

Mako sharks can grow in length to nearly four metres (13ft) and weigh over 500kg (1,100lb).