Huge hammerhead shark caught by Texas man along Padre Island National Seashore

PADRE ISLAND, Texas – A 14-foot hammerhead shark was quite the catch for a South Texas fisherman at Padre Island National Seashore over the weekend.

Poco Cedillo of Robstown posted a photo of the massive shark along with a synopsis of what led to the eventual donation of the shark meat, according to KSAT.com.

"Our main focus was to get her released quickly," Cedillo wrote. "After 30 to 40 minutes of us holding her up into the current in 3 to 4 feet of water, we were faced with accepting the fact that she was done."

"People that know me know that I release every single shark I catch so this hurts," he wrote. "Catching this fish of a lifetime and it not making it totally sucks for me, but it happens especially since we tried hard."

Here's the full text of the post:

"Our amigo Poco Cedillo with a catch of a lifetime 14ft hammerhead shark! #stxfa

Well here is the story of my shark catch of multiple lifetimes and to clear the air of whatever people may be saying about it.

Yesterday afternoon I hooked up to a shark Ive only dreamed about. I fought it with my 80wtrx for an hour and 15 min which is beast mode for a shark that big. While leadering it we noticed she was very tired so we quickly took pics, got a length measurement, took the hook out and did all we could to get her released. All that only took around 3-5 min while it still in plenty deep water. At the time we didn’t bother getting a girth, fork length or even tried tagging her. Our main focus was to get her released quickly. Well after 30-40 min of us holding her up into the current in 3-4’ of water we were faced with accepting the fact that she was done. We were so tired, shark rashed and disappointed that it sucked the excitement right out of us for a while.

Now for most of us that live for land based shark fishing this was something that we never wanted to go through. We then decided that since we couldn’t get her released we were going to do everything we could to save the meat so thats what we did. 5-6 of us went to work and Im happy to say that all meat was saved, cooled down and donated. While cutting meat we found a total of 15 barbs stuck well inside the meat from the head to the tail. Crazy!

Thats the full story and god honest truth my friends. I owe nobody an apology for this but I felt I needed to let everyone know exactly what happen and shut the rumors down. People that know me know that I release every single shark I catch so this hurts. Catching this fish of a lifetime and it not making it totally sucks for me but it happens especially since we tried hard.

For all the sharkers, friends and people that have reached out congratulating me, trying to make me feel better etc, thank you. For the ones out there moving their ignorant mouths, fish on amigos!! 🦈✌🏽

Official measurements...

Greater Hammerhead
14 feet (168”)
Fork length 135”
Girth 78”