Two Pensacola anglers catch a 10-foot great white shark at Orange Beach

Orange Beach, Alabama (WKRGMore) — Coastal Worldwide’s Dylan Wier and Blaine Kenny had a relatively boring time. Sunday night. They were sitting on a fishing line with a client in Orange Beach, trying to grab a bite.

Two shark fishing guides had no idea they were trying to catch a 10-foot-long great white just before sunrise.

“As soon as I got that fish, I think I passed out for a second because of the adrenaline, but I got right back into action and caught that fish as quickly as I could,” Kenny said.

They estimate that the shark weighs between 800 and 1,000 pounds.

“I got in my kayak and went back to the beach,” Wier said. “Blaine here, my business partner, he stuck it out from the beach and immediately realized we had really big fish.”

In the chaos, all six men worked hand in hand on the deck to bring the giant shark ashore.

They say they’ve caught sharks in the same way before, but they didn’t like it.

“We’re always sort of seed hunting checking new boxes. I thought we’d checked all the boxes here in the panhandle as far as the shark side is concerned,” says Wier. “But he had one surprise left that he never thought he’d see.”

Such catches are rare, especially since the great white shark population is declining.

Regulations on commercial fishing for great white sharks prevent them from becoming endangered or extinct.

So in Weir and Kenny’s case, they quickly put their once-in-a-lifetime catch back into the bay.

Their prey is believed to be the first great white shark caught in Alabama.