They were catching big grouper when a monster of the sea swam next to their boat

The scariest predator in the ocean is the massive great white shark. With movies like “Jaws” portraying the giant sharks as a stone-cold killer, human encounters could be terrifying. But for Captain Tim Noe, his first time seeing one in the wild was one he’ll never forget.

This meeting happened last Saturday when Noe was fishing more than 110 miles west of Sarasota targeting giant gag grouper with clients.

“They wanted a trip to get personal best gags so we went deep, fishing 410-430 feet,” Noe said. “The fishing was really good. We got a 39- and 33-pound gag grouper and a handful of 15- to 20-pound class. Red snapper wasn’t the focus of the day, but we still ended up with a few as well.”

After accomplishing a box full of fish an angler had one final request. Noe pointed his 42-foot Freeman north a bit for the last stop of the day.

“He wanted to try for a deep water Kitty MItchell grouper. It was our last spot and with seas building there wasn’t going to be much time to fish since we had about a three-hour ride home,” Noe recalled.

“Thats when someone said they saw something big in the water and we all looked down.”

When Noe glanced through the rough water, he saw a great white shark between 14- and 16-feet.

“I couldn’t believe it for a second, it was just sitting there. I grabbed my phone as soon as I could and started recording. Everyone on the boat was freaking out. It was only around for about 30 seconds before it slipped off.”

Never feeling in danger at the size of the shark, Noe debated actually tossing a line to it. Normally reserved for giant grouper, he had a 14/0 reel, steel cable and a big bonita that would have potentially worked.

“It would have been ready to go really quick. But looking back it’s probably best we didn’t hook that shark,” he explained. “Seas were building and it was getting rough. That would have been a fight that lasted hours, but if it were the beginning of the trip or early on, yeah, that wouldn’t have been a question, I would love to hook one.”

Great whites are not uncommon in the Gulf of Mexico. Each year a few seem to be spotted as close as a few miles from the beach. Many are satellite tagged, allowing researchers to track them when they surface.

Ferg, an 11-foot, 6-inch, 874-pound male white pinged in the southern Gulf on Oct. 27.

Edithe, a nearly 1,200-pound female, was tracked in late April while Unama’ki, a giant 15-foot, 5-inch, 2,076-pound female was tracked in the Gulf of Mexico in March of this year. Tracking can be seen at the website ocearch.org/tracker.