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What he got was a white shark.
The 39-year-old Little Egg Harbor fisherman was on the water 12 miles of of Atlantic City Wednesday, June 12, when he felt a shark hit his line around 11:30 a.m., he said.
He didn't know what type of fish it was until it was five or six feet away from the boat, Bogin said.
The shark rolled on its belly and Bogin realized: "Holy cow, that's a white shark.
"There wasn’t any part of me that thought that’s what would’ve been on the other end of the line."
Bogin has been fishing since he was 5 years old and has never encountered anything like that, he said.
"I fought it for two good runs and was able to get it alongside the boat in about 10 minutes," he said. "When I got it close, I was kind of shocked. It's a rare thing."
Once the shark calmed down, Bogin was able to see she was about 5.5 feet long. He snapped a couple photos and a video, then tried to figure out how he was going to let her go.
"She had a pretty impressive set of teeth," he said. "Some of them were bigger than the adult sharks that New Jersey has."
Bogin went to cut the line and free the shark, when the shark snapped at him. He tried again.
"I was able to cut the lead right at the hook, and she swam away on her own power," Bogin said, noting the hook in its mouth is one that will rust out after a few days.
"It was kind of always a bucket list thing to reel something in like that. You see them on National Geographic and they’re pretty impressive but to see one up that close..."
It's something else.
Bogin ended up fishing for another hour and reeling in a 10-foot dusky shark, which he said is another protected species but a lot more common than the white shark.
"I go fishing all the time but I never thought that would happen," he said. "It's probably the last time I'll have that kind of encounter."
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