The biggest shark ever caught on rod and reel and certified by the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) is a 2,664-pound (1,208-kilogram) great white landed off South Australia in 1959. This guide covers the IGFA all-tackle records for the major shark species, the stories behind the most famous catches, which giants are certified and which are only estimates, and why the record book has barely changed in decades.
If you fish for sharks or just love a good fish story, the history matters. Most of these records were set when anglers could legally keep the fish. Many of the same species are now protected, and the move to catch-and-release has changed what a record can even be.
The biggest shark ever caught: Alf Dean’s 1959 great white
Alf Dean grew fruit in Irymple, Victoria, and didn’t start chasing sharks until middle age, according to British Sea Fishing’s history of the biggest fish caught on rod and line. In April 1959, off Ceduna, South Australia, he landed a 2,664-pound white shark on 130-pound line with porpoise for bait.
Saltwater Sportsman reports Dean fished a Penn 14/0 reel spooled with Ashaway line and that the shark was about 17 feet (5.2 meters) long with a girth near 9½ feet. Wired2Fish lists the length as 16.8 feet (5.1 meters). It remains the heaviest fish of any species the IGFA has certified on rod and reel, nearly 880 pounds more than the next-heaviest shark record.
Dean caught more than one giant. Sporting Classics reports he landed a 2,536-pound white about four years before his record and a 2,312-pound white in 1963. He also reportedly lost a fish estimated at nearly 4,000 pounds in 1952, a story that belongs in the legend file, not the record book.
The catch was legal then, and it is very unlikely to be matched now. White sharks are federally protected in U.S. waters and illegal to harvest in many countries, and Outdoor Life reports the IGFA no longer accepts the species for records. The species itself grows larger still, with estimates of 4,500 pounds and 21 feet (6.4 meters), according to Wired2Fish.
IGFA shark records by species
Six shark species hold IGFA all-tackle records above 1,000 pounds, according to Wired2Fish’s rundown of world record sharks over 1,000 pounds. Heaviest first:
- White shark: 2,664 pounds, caught by Alf Dean off Ceduna, Australia, in April 1959.
- Tiger shark (shared record): 1,785 pounds, 11 ounces, caught by Kevin James Clapson in Australia in March 2004, and 1,780 pounds, caught by Walter Maxwell in South Carolina in June 1964.
- Greenland shark: 1,708 pounds, 9 ounces, and 13.4 feet (4.1 meters), caught by Terje Nordtvedt in Norway’s Trondheim Fjord in October 1987 on herring.
- Sixgill shark: 1,298 pounds and 10.5 feet (3.2 meters), caught by Clemens Rump in the United Kingdom in November 2002.
- Great hammerhead: 1,280 pounds, caught by Bucky Dennis off Boca Grande, Florida, on May 23, 2006, on a stingray. It crushed the old mark, a 357-pound, 8-ounce fish Roberto Estrada caught in Panama’s Pinas Bay in 1975.
- Shortfin mako: 1,221 pounds and about 11 feet (3.4 meters), caught by Luke Sweeney off Chatham, Massachusetts, on July 21, 2001, while drifting a bonito.
Below the 1,000-pound club, Outdoor Life’s guide to the biggest sharks of all time lists these IGFA all-tackle records:
- Thresher shark: 767 pounds, 3 ounces, caught by D.L. Hannah in New Zealand’s Bay of Islands on Feb. 26, 1993.
- Dusky shark: 764 pounds, caught by Warren Girle off Longboat Key, Florida, on May 28, 1982.
- Bull shark: 697 pounds, 12 ounces, caught by Ronald de Jager off Malindi, Kenya, on March 24, 2001.
- Sandbar shark: 529 pounds, 1 ounce, caught by lure designer Patrick Sébile in Guinea-Bissau’s Bijagos archipelago on April 5, 2002, remarkable for a species NOAA says tops out around 200 pounds as an adult.
- Lemon shark: 405 pounds, caught by Colleen Harlow off Buxton, North Carolina, on Nov. 23, 1988.
- Sand tiger: 350 pounds, 2 ounces, caught by Mark Thawley off the Charleston Jetty in South Carolina on April 29, 1993.
- Blacktip shark: 270 pounds, 9 ounces, caught by Jurgen Oeder in Kenya’s Malindi Bay on Sept. 21, 1984.
- Porbeagle: 230 pounds, caught by Christopher Bennett off Pentland Firth in Caithness, Scotland, on March 9, 1993.
The tiger shark tie and the Cherry Grove Pier legend
Walter Maxwell’s tiger shark came off Cherry Grove Pier in South Carolina in June 1964. It weighed 1,780 pounds (807 kilograms) and measured 166.5 inches (13.9 feet) with a 103-inch girth. Maxwell caught it on a skate with a Penn Senator reel and 130-pound line, according to Outdoor Life.
The Cherry Grove Pier’s own history says the shark was trucked to Loris and not weighed until the following day, and it puts the fish at about 2,000 pounds when caught. That number is the pier’s estimate, not the certified weight.
Sporting Classics reports Maxwell hooked another tiger that June that yanked gaffs away from the people trying to land it; witnesses put it at 18 feet or more. Two years later he caught a 1,150-pound tiger at Yaupon Pier, which the magazine says is still North Carolina’s state record.
Forty years after Maxwell’s catch, Kevin James Clapson landed a 1,785-pound, 11-ounce tiger in Australia, 5 pounds, 11 ounces heavier. IGFA rules require a new record for a fish over 25 pounds to top the old one by at least 0.5%. Clapson came up 8 pounds, 14 ounces short of that margin, so the two anglers share the record.
Claims, estimates and the ones that got away
Plenty of sharks have outsized the record holders; they just weren’t caught, weighed and certified under the rules. Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans cites a Greenland shark of 2,250 pounds and 21 feet as the largest on record, per Wired2Fish. The same outlet notes a sixgill estimated at 25 feet was released off Ireland in 2017.
Then there’s the mako Welsh charter skipper Rob Rennie caught in 2020. According to British Sea Fishing’s shortfin mako profile, the 11-foot fish was estimated at 800 to 1,200 pounds, was too big to bring aboard and was let go beside the boat. Because record fish must be weighed on land, it couldn’t qualify, though Rennie hoped measurements and photos might earn recognition. The British boat record remains a 500-pound mako caught by Joyce Yallop off Looe, Cornwall, in 1971.
Why new shark records are so rare in the catch-and-release era
Every 1,000-pound shark record is at least 20 years old, and Wired2Fish explains why. Laws in many places bar anglers from keeping large sharks, so a contender can’t be brought to a dock scale for a certified weight. Public tolerance for hanging a giant shark up to weigh it has also faded.
Sport Fishing makes a similar point: many big-game records come from a time when letting giant fish go was less of a priority, and today’s anglers would rather snap photos boatside and release them. Outdoor Life ties the shortage of new records to overfishing, the fin trade, in which 70 million to 100 million sharks are finned each year, and the protections that followed.
Current rules for several record species show how much has changed:
- Shortfin mako: Landing and keeping Atlantic shortfin makos was banned in 2022, while Pacific anglers may keep two per day. The IUCN moved the species from Vulnerable to Endangered in 2019.
- Great hammerhead: Listed as Critically Endangered by the IUCN, according to Wired2Fish. It may be harvested in federal waters by anglers with the proper HMS permit if the fish is at least 78 inches, but no state allows anglers to keep one, and studies show many die after release.
- White shark: In Atlantic federal waters, anglers may pursue whites as long as they’re released boatside; that’s not allowed in state waters, and it’s illegal in federal Pacific waters.
Big sharks are still out there, and Outdoor Life notes some species are rebounding in places such as the Gulf of Mexico. But under weigh-on-land rules, a released giant can’t claim a title, and Wired2Fish expects most of these records to stand for a long time, if not forever. Alf Dean’s great white has already held on for 67 years.
Source: Wired2Fish, Outdoor Life, Outdoor Life
