The news reports don't say why Mesquite's Steve Johnston was in California. On vacation, one presumes, doing some deep-sea fishing. In any case, he and a crew from the Outdoor Channel's The Professionals chartered a boat out of Huntington Beach and went hunting for mako sharks.
The trip was a success for all involved except, of course, the shark, who was killed after a two-hour struggle. But he did not die in vain. At 12 feet or so and more than 1,300 pounds, the shark will will be remembered in record books as the largest-ever mako shark ever caught.
But back to Johnston, who was clearly giddy when he was interviewed by the CBS outlet in Los Angeles.
"It's unreal. This thing is definitely a killing machine," he told the station. "Any wrong step, I could have gone out of the boat and down to the bottom of the ocean."
Possibly, but as the Outdoor Channel's video posted below shows, this wasn't exactly The Old Man and the Sea. There's an entire crew of men with crossbows and fishing lines helping to subdue the creature. It's a brutal scene.
(h/t Frontburner)
