Almost everyone remembers the first time they caught a fish. Matt Thompson of Knoxville will always remember the second. It may have been just a half hour after his first, but what he pulled in was a 17 foot shark.

“I had no idea what was on the other end of the line,” he recalls. “I just knew it was big.”

Three hours later, he knew exactly what it was… a near-600 pound Thresher shark.

“There was a mix of excitement and adrenalin, which made the three hours pass very quickly,” he says.

According to the boat captain the thresher shark Thompson caught was a world-record at the time. Thompson was out fishing for the day with Mark the Shark of Striker-1 Monster Fishing headquartered in Miami Beach.

“It was a big one, a big thresher shark, a very nice trophy fish,” recalls Mark the Shark, a career fisherman for more than 30 years. “Matt caught the second largest thresher shark ever caught on rod and reel.”

“I was just down there to have a good time, fish and hopefully catch something. I didn’t plan on having to mount something. Trying to figure out where to hang a 17 foot long shark is an interesting problem.”

Thompson has fished a number of times in his life mostly in lakes. His first catch was earlier in the day, when he caught a Mahi Mahi Tuna.

Thompson and his father, Rod, own and operate Big Cabins, a Smoky Mountain cabins company that rents Big Cabins for business retreats, family reunions, weddings, church groups and others. The big Tennessee cabins range in size from 8 to 12 bedrooms. The largest can accommodate up to 52 people. The cabins can be seen by visiting their website at www.bigcabins.com Smoky Mountain Cabins

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