The clip shows the shark swimming beside the boat
An incredible video has captured the moment when a 12-year-boy caught a monster great white shark while fishing in South Florida. The boy, Campbell Keenan, was out fishing with his family, along with Fort Lauderdale Fishing Charters, when his bait caught a much bigger fish than he expected, New York Post reported. Once the boy's bait caught the fish, it took him and the team 45 minutes to reel it in. As it swam closer, the captain exclaimed that it was a great white shark, leaving everyone ecstatic.
"You guys got a giant great white!" one of the crew members yelled.
The boy's mother Colleen Keenan shared pictures and videos of the once-in-a-lifetime catch on her Instagram account. The clip shows the shark swimming beside the boat, while people aboard it scream in excitement.
Watch the video here:
The fish turned out to be an 11-foot-long shark estimated to be between 400 to 700 pounds, Keenan's mother Colleen Keenan, told ABC News in an interview.
"Campbell was doing the reeling and then the first mate was guiding him and telling him how to let the rod go down and then pull it back up and reel as he's pulling up. And then I was holding on to Campbell because he wasn't strapped in anything and the great white could have easily just taken him for a ride," Colleen Keenan added.
"So, I was a little bit nervous - like, I don't know if I want to go up against a shark. But it did make me really excited," Campbell Keenan told CBS News while adding that it was his biggest accomplishment while fishing.
They did not pull the shark into the boat because there are regulations in the US against taking great whites out of the water. However, they pulled the shark in close enough for the captain to tag it, before releasing it.
The great white shark lives in coastal waters all around the world and is the largest predatory fish on the planet.