FLAGLER BEACH, Fla. -- With a rod and a reel, a local man landed a huge shark off the Central Florida coast. The 12-foot-4 hammerhead was pulled ashore in Flagler Beach, just blocks away from a popular swimming spot.

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Danny Ficocello pulled the shark in along Flagler Beach. He told Eyewitness News that just outside the waves there's a deep spot, with big fish. In fact, it is the same spot where a shark last week bit right through a woman's surfboard.

The shark measured more than 12 feet long, about 550 pounds, and it's by far the biggest thing Ficocello has ever seen some out of the water.

"I'll be pumped for years! That's the catch of a lifetime right there," he said.

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After putting out his bait at Flagler Beach Saturday night, he fished for two hours with no bites, but then it hit and he knew it was big.

"I hopped up cause I knew something picked it up and then it just started screaming, whiiirrrr, and it didn't stop for a good half hour. I couldn't stop that fish," he said.

His reel spun so fast he had to get water to cool it off. It turned into a three-hour battle that ended with him recruiting 12 people to actually pull the shark ashore.

"When we were trying to pull it up onto the pier, it was bigger than the pier. We had to use a truck," said eyewitness Matt Grosse.

The full fish was so big, he couldn't keep it. Just the head measures almost a yard from tip to tip. It's so big he's still not sure how he can keep just the head.

"My first thought was, 'What am I going to do with this now?'" he said. "it blew my mind and a lot of my buddies' minds, too."

It may be the biggest thing seen around Flagler Beach in some time, but the shark is actually far from the state record. The biggest hammerhead ever pulled in weighed almost twice as much as the one Ficocello caught, close to 1,000 pounds.