3 fishermen reel in 510-pound shark off New Jersey coast

The men, from Staten Island, New York, caught the big fish off the coast of Sandy Hook, New Jersey, the Staten Island Advance reported.

It took the men, who are members of the Staten Island Fishing Club, three hours to land the fish, WCBS reported. The men took turns in a harness in their 23-foot boat to battle the shark, the television station reported.

The men -- Joseph Egitto, 27; Pat Salvato, 42; and Frank Pomponio, 25 -- have been catching sharks for the last three weeks but were surprised by the size of their latest catch.

"It was intense. Three hours of fighting and we landed him, thank God," Egitto told the Advance. "It was nuts; I'm just baffled."

Egitto, who was driving the boat, said he had to rotate the vessel to counter the shark's power, the newspaper reported.

"As the shark pulled down, you felt your body weight go light. A couple of times the shark pulled Frank so hard when he was strapped into the harness that he stumbled into the back of the boat," Egitto told the Advance. "It's crazy, it's literally man versus beast."

The catch was impressive but not a state record for thresher sharks, WCBS reported. According to the website of the New Jersey Division of Fish & Wildlife, a 683-pound shark was caught in 2009 by Bennett Fogelberg.