If you’re looking for a shark that was physically pulled onto a boat, the record gets a bit murky. For decades, the accepted record was a 5.5-meter (18-foot) great white caught off Australia in 1987. But that’s like bragging about catching the biggest fish in a kiddie pool—impressive, but not the whole story.
There were also reports from 1959 of a 5.9-meter (19.5-foot) monster caught off Australia. But the measurements were taken after the shark had been gutted and frozen, so scientists argue it might have shrunk. Imagine shrinking your trophy fish by zombifying it. That’s a weird flex.
The "Fish That Got Away" Hall of Fame
Every shark fisherman has a story about “the one that broke the line.” But a 2013 study suggested that great whites can grow up to 20 feet or more in the wild. So Deep Blue is probably not the biggest—she’s just the biggest we’ve verified. There’s likely a shark out there bigger than your car, swimming around like, “You’ll never catch me, silly humans.”
It’s like that time you swore you saw a 10-foot catfish in a pond, but it was just a log. Only this time, the log has teeth and a bad attitude.
Biggest Great White Shark Ever Caught In The World
