Dylan Wier, his business partner Blaine Kenny and a group of family friends from Wisconsin have the mother of all fish tales.

It’s something that Wier, a 27-year-old Pensacola resident, still finds hard to grasp.

“After the release, you can see steam coming out of my ears processing what had happened,” said Wier, referring to an early morning catch on Tuesday, March 7, that proved to be a great white shark.

“I never heard of a great white shark landing in Alabama before,” he said.

Neither have the experts. The fish was confirmed as a great white shark by a Mississippi-based professor who is the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resource’s go-to expert on sharks.

And though the fish was a juvenile, at around 11 feet in length, it is still a record-setting. That’s because the fish is believed to be first-ever great white shark caught by a land-based fisherman in Alabama.

“I think it was an amazing opportunity these anglers had to experience catching one,” said Scott Bannon, director of the marine resources division with ADCNR.

Combating ‘Jaws’

The catch occurred in the dark of the early morning hours in Orange Beach and took 32 minutes to reel in. A video of the catch is posted to YouTube by Wier and Kenny’s land-based shark fishing business, Coastal WorldWide. It shows the exuberance the group experienced as they sensed their haul was a species rarely caught in Gulf waters from those fishing on a beach.

The duo followed up with a 25-minute podcast of the two talking about their catch.

“At the time, it was around 4:30 in the morning and (our group) were the only people on the beach,” said Wier. “I thought, ‘what a cool memory for our group.’ Just a cool moment.”

It’s also a catch that Wier understands he will never likely experience again, even though his business involves frequent close-up encounters with sharks.

“I doubt we will see this being a regular occurrence,” said Bannon. “Just an exciting isolated event.”

The great white shark, while detected offshore in Gulf waters, is rarely seen in waters close enough for land-based fishermen to reach.

Marcus Drymon, an assistant extension professor at Mississippi State University – and the shark expert Alabama officials refer too – told AL.com on Tuesday that people “should absolutely not be concerned” that the same shark is in the water.

The catch occurred right around spring break, which draws large crowds of out-of-state vacationers to Gulf Shores and Orange Beach for a week of sun, surf and swimming in the Gulf.

“This species is still rare this close to the shore in the Gulf of Mexico,” said Drymon. “My three children and I still still swim on coastal Alabama beaches.”

But the fears are likely there, thanks to Hollywood portrayals of aggressive sharks stemming from Steven Spielberg’s 1975 megahit thriller, “Jaws.”

“The easiest thing I tell people is that if sharks wanted to hunt people, there’d be hundreds of sharks attacks a day,” said Wier. “If ‘Jaws’ was real, there’d be a lot of shark attacks and we wouldn’t get in the water. Those sharks don’t look for us often.”

Wier said that his company often flies drones above the Gulf. He said that most people do not have “a single clue” as to how close Gulf swimmers are to sharks. A shark-on-human bite, though, is extremely rare and often only occurs whenever the animal is confused, Wier noted.

“It’s fictional movies like ‘Jaws’ that draw a false sense of (safety),” he said.

‘We were proud’

What isn’t fiction is the elevated expectations Wier and Kenny and their business might experience from the catch.

So far, they have had a run of good luck since the big catch. For instance, during one recent fishing trip, Wier said he was able to lure in an 11-foot dusky shark.

“Our thing is it’s fun for our clients … it’s like riding a bull,” said Wier, referring to land-based shark fishing. “You’re putting all you can physically to hold on and try to get that fish in quickly.”

Wier said he had “zero idea” on the weight of the great white shark. That’s because the shark was immediately released, following a hectic flourish of photographs that were taken to confirm that the fish was, in fact, a great white.

“We didn’t get the perfect picture, but it was less about that than getting (the shark) back to safety,” he said. “It’s not a typical catch. It’s a high priority fish in the public’s eye and for science. We had a responsibility to make sure it got back out (into the waters) safely.”

Bannon said that Wier, Kenny and the rest of the people in the group handled the situation appropriately.

“They followed all of the precautions to ensure that safety was paramount to them, and others that would utilize the beaches,” he said.

The 32 minutes to lure the fish to the beach might also have been the longest fishing struggle for Wier and Kenny. He said the typical blacktip reef shark will take about seven minutes to reel in, while some of the biggest tiger sharks swimming 200 yards or so from the beaches will take 15-20 minutes.

“We were proud,” he said. “It was crazy. We had to unload all of our gear (when we returned to Pensacola) and kept talking about how no one else knows (about the catch). A lot of people will want to know this story. And we wanted to make sure we took the opportunity to highlight land-based shark fishing.”

Wier said he has been fishing for sharks from the beaches since around 2014, after moving from the Kansas City area to Pensacola. He grew up fishing in the Midwest for bluegill, crappie, and bass – a far cry from sharks.

“I had to learn the ropes,” he said. “We do social media now to shorten the learning curve (with land-based shark fishing). The boat guys will keep their secrets, but as far as shark fishing goes, you don’t keep secrets. We are in the public eye on the beach.”

The family friends from Wisconsin, who were visiting Pensacola, also have quite a fish tale to take home with them.

They are also likely to have a hard time coming up with a fishing experience that will ever top what they had in Orange Beach.

It’s already proving to be a struggle for them, Wier said.

“One of the guys (who were part of the six in the group) told us they went musky fishing the other day,” Wier said. “He told us, ‘it’s just not as cool.’”