Real Big Fish! Manhasset college student catches 400-pound bull shark

It started out as a regular Saturday at the beach for 21-year-old TJ Minutillo, but soon he and his friends knew they were on to something big.

News 12 Staff

Jul 30, 2020, 9:36 PM

Updated 1,535 days ago

Share:

Amidst plenty of shark sightings on the South Shore, a Manhasset college student reeled in a massive 400-pound bull shark in Long Island waters.
It started out as a regular Saturday at the beach for 21-year-old TJ Minutillo, but soon he and his friends knew they were on to something big.
"Normally, we do the same thing, shark fishing. Just casting from the beach," says Minutillo. "(Then) we caught a bull shark -- around 8 feet, and somewhere between 300 and 400 pounds."
Once the bull shark was hooked, Minutillo and his friends say it took 2 1/2 hours to reel it into shore. Once they got it there, plenty of photos were taken, including posing with the shark for Instagram.
"I have a lot of experience doing things like that with smaller sharks, normally when you do grab the nose, they kind of chill out for some reason," says Minutillo. "After that, we just put it back in the water, took the hook out, that was it."
As for whether his Insta-famous bull shark is the one causing a stir around Long Island, no one knows for sure.
"This one would be really cool to track and see where it went, who knows, that thing could be spending the winter in Cancun or somewhere," says Minutillo.