Eighty-pound kid hooks his weight in shark

DESTIN, FL - In a couple of weeks, 11-year-old Misha Shtapov is going to have a gleaming new pair of shark jaws on the shelf in his bedroom after a trip out of Destin on the Hired Gun with Capt. Bill Waitzman.
   
The 80-pound boy from Louisville, Ky., reeled in a 92-pound sandbar shark on July 7.
   
“I think that was pretty remarkable for a little kid,” Waitzman said.
   
The trip also yielded a mess of king mackerel, but the sights were set on catching a shark when the boat pulled out at 6 a.m. for an all day fishing trip.
   
“We just knew that the boy wanted to catch a shark, so we took him to the best place we knew to do that,” Waitzman said. “We had been hooking sharks at that particular place in the last couple of weeks.”
   
Waitzman declined to say exactly where the “secret shark spot” is, but he was right on with his prediction of where the giant jaws would be lurking that Tuesday.
   
Misha waited patiently with his rod and reel — then something took a bite.
   
“First I started reeling it and I felt something really big and I called my dad over,” Misha said. “I was really struggling.”
   
Misha kept reeling as his father, Demitri Shtapov, and the others cheered him on and stepped in to offer some assistance keeping the end of his rod up and held him steady as he reeled for half an hour to get the shark in.
   
Waitzman said Misha caught a highly sought shark in the fishing community. The sandbar shark is one that has unusually large pectoral and dorsal fins.
   
The most surprising thing about Misha’s catch is that he reeled in the 92-pounder with 25-pound test line, making it his biggest fishing accomplishment. The well-traveled and well-seasoned junior fisherman has also caught a 60-pound halibut in Alaska and a 44-pound sturgeon in Washington.
   
So what did they do with the Destin prize?
   
“We cut off its jaw and teeth and we brought it to Louisville in a freezer,” Misha said. “We’re planning to cut the meat away and put it in bleach.”
   
After the jaws are all cleaned and dried, they will have a new home on the shelf in Misha’s room to remind him of his family’s Destin vacation.
   
“That will be really cool.”