HUNTINGTON BEACH, Calif. (KTLA) — A group of fishermen may have broken a world record with a huge shark caught off the coast of Huntington Beach. 
 
 A fisherman named Jason Johnston, from Mesquite, Texas, chartered a boat out of Huntington Beach on Monday. 
 
 His group hooked a massive shortfin mako shark about 15 miles offshore. 
 
 The shark was 11 feet long, 8 feet in girth and more than 1,300 pounds, according to the fishermen’s estimates. 
 
 It took more than two hours and a quarter-mile of line to reel in the shark, according to Johnston. 
 
 The shark was being taken to a weigh yard in Gardena to be certified by a weigh master. 
 
 It was expected to be donated to a research organization for study. 
 
 As they waited for news on their possible world record, the fishermen planned to head out again on Tuesday for another adventure. 

 Kent Williams, owner of New Fishall Bait Co., stands next to a 1,323.5-pound Mako shark at the company's headquarters in Gardena. (Genaro Molina / Los Angeles Times / ) 
 
 This post has been corrected. See the note at the bottom for details. 
 
 The fishermen who caught what is believed to be a record-breaking 1,323-pound mako shark off the coast of Huntington Beach weren't just out fishing for pleasure. 
 
 At least two videographers involved in an Outdoor Channel reality television show -- "Jim Shockey's The Professionals" -- were on the fishing boat and the massive catch is already being promoted online. 
 
 Kent Williams, who owns New Fishall Bait Co. in Gardena where the shark is being held, said the captain of the boat, Matt Potter, has been a customer for years and buys thousands of dollars' worth of bait. 
 
 PHOTOS: Sharks and people -- too close for comfort 
 
 About 3 p.m. on Monday, Williams received a text from Potter: "I think we got one over a grand, finally.” 
 
 The shark arrived at Williams’ Gardena facility about 7 p.m. The fish overloaded the first scale, so they moved it to another. 
 
 
 
 Williams said the crew pumped chum from a bait tank attached to the boat, luring the sharks toward them. The bait is a combination of ground sardines and mackerel -- it runs $25-$35 dollars for a 30-pound bucket, depending on the quality of the chum. 
 
 
 
 Corey Knowlton, one of the co-hosts of the show, described the shark to KTLA: "It's basically like a giant nightmare swimming around." 
 
 David McGuire, director of Shark Stewards, a Bay Area-based nonprofit that advocates for the protection of sharks, said he believed the mako should have been released. 
 
 “I’m a little shocked by it,” he said. “It’s really something you see more in Florida than in California, where we have more of a conservation ethic.” 
 
 He said he “certainly would object” to a catch set up for a television show. “People should be viewing these sharks as wonderful animals that are important to the ocean and admiring how beautiful they are,” he said, not “spilling their blood and guts.” 
 
 “These kind of reality shows are not reality. The reality is we’re overfishing sharks and this macho big-game attitude should be a relic of the past,” he said. “This is not entertainment. It’s not right, in my view.” 
 
 Responding to criticism about the catch, Capt. Matt Potter -– who simply goes by “Mako Matt” –- said they abided by fishing laws. 
 
 
 
 “It’s just like any other fishing,” he said. “The state limit for mako is two per person per day. We only kept one mako for a total of 18 passengers out there three days.” The rest were released, he said. 
 
 
 
 Another fisherman on board, Jason Johnston, said that catching the shark isn't hurting the population. 
 
 “There are not that many sharks being taken out of the water," Johnston said. "It’s not hurting the population. If we pull four fish out of the water per year, that’s just four.” 
 
 [For the record, 9:28 p.m., June 4: A previous version of this post incorrectly identified the director of Shark Stewards as David Hughes. His name is David McGuire.] 
 
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 If the 1,323-pound mako shark hooked off the coast of Huntington Beach checks out, it would not only set a new world weight record but would also rank in the top half-percent of catches on file, officials said. 
 
 Jack Vitek is the world records coordinator for the International Game Fish Assn., the Florida-based group that has regularly tracked world-record catches since 1939, with some dating to the 1860s. 
 
 He confirmed that if Monday's catch meets the group's requirements, it would break the standing mako record set in July 2001, when a 1,221-pound shark was hauled in off the coast of Chatham, Mass. 
 
 PHOTOS: Sharks and people -- too close for comfort 
 
 It takes about two months for the IGFA to verify domestic catches, Vitek said. The fishermen must submit an application including basic information about the catch, along with photos and the actual tackle used, and the scale must meet requirements. For big catches, he said, witness testimony is usually also required. 
 
 And this catch is “enormous,” he said. “Absolutely.” 
 
 Of the 6,850 world records the IGFA has on file, only 23 involve fish topping 1,300 pounds, Vitek said. That means the Huntington Beach mako would fall within the top half-percent. 
 
 The largest catch on record was a 2,664-pound great white shark reeled in off the coast of Australia in 1959, Vitek said. 
 
 “Seeing a fish over 1,000 pounds -- whether it’s a shark, a tuna or a billfish -- it’s extremely rare,” he said. 
 
 Adding to the complexity of the catch is the mako’s speed, he said. The sharks are among the fastest out there. 
 
 “They’re a very elite game fish, and to have the all-tackle IGFA record is any kind of big game angler’s dream,” he said. “There may or may not be anything tangible in terms of financial reward or endorsement, but just having that credit to your name and having that honor is pretty big.” 
 
 Kent Williams, who owns the New Fishall Bait Co. in Gardena, where the mako was being held, said the fishermen who caught the shark would be in contact with the IFGA about the potential record. 
 
 Williams said the captain of the boat, Matt Potter -- known as "Mako Matt" -- has been a customer for years and buys thousands of dollars worth of bait. About 3 p.m. Monday, Williams received a text from Potter: "I think we got one over a grand, finally." 
 
 At least two videographers involved in an Outdoor Channel reality television show -- "Jim Shockey's The Professionals" -- were on the fishing boat and the massive catch is already being promoted online. 
 
 Corey Knowlton, one of the co-hosts of the show, described the shark to KTLA-TV Channel 5: "It's basically like a giant nightmare swimming around." 
 
 Makos are common off the coast of Southern California, which is considered a “nursery ground” for the young sharks, according to Nick Wegner, a fisheries research biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. They tend to stay in open-ocean area -- they don’t come to the surf zone and “very rarely have any interactions with people,” Wegner said, though fishermen commonly catch smaller makos between 2.5 and 6 feet long. 
 
 “Encountering one this big is rare,” he said. 
 
 David McGuire, director of Shark Stewards, a Bay Area-based nonprofit that advocates for the protection of sharks, said he believed the mako should have been released. 
 
 “I’m a little shocked by it,” he said. “It’s really something you see more in Florida than in California, where we have more of a conservation ethic.” 
 
 He said he “certainly would object” to a catch set up for a television show. 
 
 “People should be viewing these sharks as wonderful animals that are important to the ocean and admiring how beautiful they are,” he said, not “spilling their blood and guts.” 
 
 “These kind of reality shows are not reality. The reality is we’re overfishing sharks and this macho big-game attitude should be a relic of the past,” he said. “This is not entertainment. It’s not right, in my view.” 
 
 Responding to criticism about the catch, Potter said they abided by fishing laws. 
 
 
 
 “It’s just like any other fishing,” he said. “The state limit for mako is two per person per day. We only kept one mako for a total of 18 passengers out there three days.” The rest were released, he said. 
 
 
 
 Another fisherman on board, Jason Johnston, said that catching the shark isn't hurting the population. 
 
 “There are not that may sharks being taken out of the water," Johnston said. "It’s not hurting the population. If we pull four fish out of the water per year, that’s just four.” 
 
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 kate.mather@latimes.com 
 
 anh.do@latimes.com
– News of a record-breaking shark capture in Southern California made headlines this week, with a group of fisherman hooking an eye-popping 1,323-pound mako shark off the coast of Huntington Beach on Monday. And reality television will bring the chum-filled escapade into your home, the LA Times reports. The capture—it's possibly the largest mako shark ever caught, and among the top 0.5% of all fish on record, the Times separately reports—was filmed by the Outdoor Channel hunting show Jim Shockey's The Professionals. One shark conservationist says the giant fish should have been released instead of killed. "These kind of reality shows are not reality. The reality is we’re overfishing sharks," he said. But the fishermen defend their catch, saying state law allows individuals to catch up to two mako per day. "We only kept one mako for a total of 18 passengers out there three days," says the captain of the fishing trip. "It’s not hurting the population," adds another fisherman, who tells KTLA what it took to capture the beast: more than two hours and a quarter-mile of line.