South Texas Angler Lands Massive Hammerhead on Padre Island

PADRE ISLAND, TX-- A South Texas man reeled in a fish he called “the catch of multiple lifetimes” on the Padre Island National Seashore over the weekend.

It took Poco Cedillo just an hour and 15 minutes to haul in a massive 14-foot Hammerhead shark. Cedillo called that time “beast mode” in a post on the South Texas Fishing Association Facebook page.

But Cedillo and his crew noticed something wasn’t right. The shark was already tired.

“While leadering it we noticed she was very tired so we quickly took pics, got a length measurement, took the hook out and did all we could to get her released,” Cedillo said.

The crew took around five minutes to remove the hook and measure the length of the shark. But, even though they managed to do all that in “fairly deep water,” they could not save the life of the shark.

“Our main focus was to get her released quickly,” Cedillo said. “Well after 30 [to] 40 minutes of us holding her up into the current in 3 [to] 4 [feet] of water, we were faced with accepting the fact that she was done. We were so tired, shark rashed and disappointed that it sucked the excitement right out of us for a while.”

After accepting the fact they wouldn’t be able to release the shark like they typically do, Cedillo said five or six people began to salvage the meat so the shark didn’t go to waste.

During that time, Cedillo and his friends were able to see the life the shark lived by finding 15 barbs stuck in it from head to tail.

“People that know me know that I release every single shark I catch so this hurts,” Cedillo added. “Catching this fish of a lifetime and it not making it totally sucks for me but it happens especially since we tried hard.”

The Padre Island National Seashore is “the longest stretch of undeveloped barrier island in the world,” according to the National Park Service website.