Great hammerheads, with their odd-looking heads, are among the largest of the species, growing to 20 feet long and weighing up to 1,000 pounds. Their average life span is 20 to 30 years, but scientists have found some to live beyond age 50.
Posted on 09/02/2007 8:17:28 PM PDT by stainlessbanner
Residents living in Tampa claim there is a giant hammerhead shark, possibly 25 feet long, in the waters off the coast.
"I've heard he's anywhere between 20 and 25 feet," said Capt. George Roux.
"He's a big boy," says Wayne Lord, 55. "That's all I know." For decades, local anglers have called him Old Hitler, the great hammerhead shark who allegedly lurks in the summertime waters around the Sunshine Skyway bridge.
As the weather heats up, so do the tales about the fish with an evil name who can snap a large tarpon in two with one chomp.
Many anglers claim to have seen him, some even snapped pictures. A few say they have hooked him, if only briefly.
Roux, the 56-year-old owner of Mega Bites Sport Fishing Charters in St. Pete Beach, jokes that he killed him a few years back.
"I buried him without any fanfare," he says, a laugh giving way. "I didn't tell anyone because I wanted to perpetuate the myth."
But is it a myth? Or is Old Hitler somewhere swimming right now, hunting prey in the green waters beneath the big yellow bridge that links Pinellas and Manatee counties?
"I tell you what, it's a good tale," said Richard Leitz, 69. "Whether it's true or not, I don't know."
People like Leitz, who work the bait shops and toll booths around the bridge, tell of the shark's most recent sightings this year.
"It broke a 400-pound braided wire leader right under the bait house," Leitz said. "That's what the man told me. He's from Arizona.
"It shook its head from side to side, which is what a shark will do."
Great hammerheads, with their odd-looking heads, are among the largest of the species, growing to 20 feet long and weighing up to 1,000 pounds. Their average life span is 20 to 30 years, but scientists have found some to live beyond age 50.
Clyde "Bucky" Dennis of Port Charlotte snagged the sport fishing world record in Boca Grande last year, capturing a 14-foot pregnant hammerhead weighing 1,280 pounds.
Scientists later determined the fish was 49 years old. One of the shark's favorite treats is tarpon, which they follow into Tampa Bay and Charlotte Harbor farther south in the spring and summer.
There's an Old Hitler down there, too. And a song by the same name that calls him "the biggest shark on the bay."
"There's an Old Hitler around every inlet, wherever there are sports fishermen who get angry at losing a fish to shark," said George Burgess, director of the Florida Program for Shark Research at the University of Florida.
Many think , but can't quite confirm, that the tale was birthed by annoyed west coast fisherman during World War II.
"Who really knows where it came from," said Bob Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota.
It's been passed from generation to generation.
Like many urban myths, it is "somewhat believable," said Charles M. Brown, sociology professor at Albright College in Pennsylvania.
"Urban legends in general tend to reflect the dangers of modern life," he said.
They also have to be entertaining, he said: "If not people are not going to continue telling them."
Dale and Larry Mastry, who own Mastry's Tackle and Bait in St. Petersburg, remember fishing for Old Hitler as boys, in the late 1950s and early '60s.
Larry Mastry said several years ago one came after a tarpon he had hooked while boating.
"I saw a huge fin behind me," he said. "The fin was as high as my motor. I thought he was going to knock the motor right off the boat."
While it's possible for hammerheads to return to the same location year after year, Mote Marine Laboratory's Hueter doubts Old Hitler is one fish seen year after year.
"When people see a very large hammerhead shark, they just want to say that must be Old Hitler," he said. "I think it's just a catchy name."
But don't tell that to Lord, the St. Petersburg fisherman who says he caught the local version of the Loch Ness monster a decade ago, at least for a few seconds, while fishing for grouper and snapper in a 19-foot Thunderbird near Egmont Key.
"He took everything, including the rod," Lord said, while swapping stories at Mastry's last week. "I know he takes what he wants, when he wants it."
Great hammerheads, with their odd-looking heads, are among the largest of the species, growing to 20 feet long and weighing up to 1,000 pounds. Their average life span is 20 to 30 years, but scientists have found some to live beyond age 50.
One question I have for the Lord is “why did You make sharks and grizzly bears?”
I thought Edwards stopped campaigning in Fla.
perfect chance for the shark feeding tourism organizers to plow their trade
They are well known to attack people.
... and mosquitos?
To cull the herd of stupid people.
My question would be, "How come you didn't make more of those sort of beasts?", or perhaps, "Why is the avocado seed so large compared to the fruit?
Any one seen Hillary? Maybe she’s out in the gulf trying to *scare* up some Florida voters....
Hooper: That's a twenty footer!
Quint: Twenty-five
The other two idiots missed, but I connected with the shark, and not far from the tail (the "action end"). That shark danced me up and down the deck and I did my best to keep from going overboard and joining him. It could have made a really funny video from that point on until we got some more gaff hooks in him.
They are good to eat but they start deteriorating within minutes of being caught, kinda' like blue crabs, so they have to be cleaned and iced immediately. Shark steaks grill very nicely and they give us humans a chance to get revenge for "Jaws".
To keep you out of places where you don't need to go.........
LOL! You reminded me of something Kurt Vonnegut Jr. wrote in Breakfast Of Champions. He mentioned a rattlesnake, and then wrote;
"A rattlesnake is a creature into whose mouth the Creator of The Universe put hypodermic needles with which it injected deadly poison into it's victims (sometimes I wonder about the Creator of The Universe)."
“Shark steaks grill very nicely and they give us humans a chance to get revenge for “Jaws”.”
Being at the top of the food chain, aren’t they rather high in organic mercury? I don’t recommend a regular diet of shark. I’m not an environmental wacko by the way.
The imaage of a big hammerhead shark with a little toothbrush mustache makes me giggle.
I’ve caught a number of hammerheads off of Galveston...they were small. But fun to catch.
No. I found out later that I was set up. Kinda' like an initiation only a lot wetter.
Good point. Barracuda, some trigger fish and a few other species at the top collect the contaminants from all the species below them on the food chain and are unfit to eat (even poisonous) in some waters.
Organic mercury? Mercury mined and refined without the use of pesticides or illegal-alien labor? I’m probably just displaying my own vast ignorance here, but “organic mercury” sounds like an oxymoron, to me.
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