“We’re going to need a bigger boat.”

When he saw the monster fish rise from the depths of the Atlantic, the immortal words from Police chief Martin Brody in Jaws were not far from Toronto native David McKendrick’s mind.

On its release forty years ago this Saturday, the original summer blockbusters’ vilification of great white sharks as mindless man-eaters provoked a trophy-hunting frenzy. Catching the apex predators of the ocean became a badge of honour amongst many deep-sea fishermen.

If you were fortunate enough to hook the largest great white shark in history, your name would be written into the record books.

That’s what happened to McKendrick, now aged 54, who caught a fish 12 miles off the coast of Prince Edward Island that the Discovery Channel’s Shark Week calls the second best catch of all time. For most people, it would be a cause for celebration, a moment they would recount daily for the rest of their lives.

Yet McKendrick has rarely spoken about the day in 1983 when his nets trawled the waters of Prince Edward Island and caught a 20-foot behemoth great white shark, a real-life Jaws.

Filled with guilt and remorse, he wishes it had never happened.

At first, brimming with “youthful enthusiasm,” he believed his catch was an over-sized bluefin tuna, a valuable commodity in the local fishing trade.

“We were using nets with a one-inch rope along the top to float it,” he said. “I guess the shark was knocking fish out the net and got tangled in the rope.

“I wasn’t trying to catch a shark; it was the furthest thing from my mind. We never thought a beast of that size roamed those waters.

“As it came closer to the surface, we realized what it was. It was big beyond anything you could imagine. Two adults couldn’t wrap their arms around it.

“My first thought was ‘if this thing starts moving, it’s really going to do some damage.”

On a searing-hot summer’s day in early August, McKendrick and his crew, including his younger brother Steven and several tourists on vacation, spent three hours hauling the fish onto the boat using winches designed to lift a much lighter catch.

By the time they reached shore, a crowd of several hundred people had gathered to catch a glimpse of the shark.

Amazingly, ‘experts’ on the shores of Prince Edward Island didn’t realize the significance of the catch. This was no ordinary shark. It was a 20 foot great white — potentially the largest ever caught, according to the Canadian Shark Research Laboratory at the Bedford Institute of Oceanography.

An animal of this size had never been spotted in those waters.

“We had absolutely no clue what it was,” McKendrick said. “Most of the local press just ignored it.”

They were so unaware of what they had caught, McKendrick doesn’t even have a picture alongside the animal.

“I don’t know what I was doing, I’m nowhere to be seen,” he says with a laugh. “People take nothing but selfies now, if I caught it today I’d probably have 100 pictures.”

Having no knowledge of what they had on their hands, they sold the 36-inch wide jaws, featuring around 130 teeth, to a museum in Miami for a substantial figure because of the popularity of shark’s jaws in the aftermath of Jaws.

Without another thought to the shark’s significance, McKendrick buried the fish nearby.

But word of the catch soon spread to Boston’s Hal Lyman, editor of Salt Water Sportsman Magazine, who alerted shark scientists.

Soon, Tom Hurlbut from the Canadian Department of Fisheries and Oceans arrived.

He was, McKendrick says, like a carbon-copy of Matt Hooper, the oceanographer from Jaws.

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“They could have been clones,” he said. “It became a good experience once he got involved. He was very informed.

“We dug up the carcass and dissected it. He found two porpoises, both six-feet long, inside the fish.

“We were totally naïve before that. We never realize those rows of incredible triangular teeth are unique to one species – the great white.”

McKendrick is far from being a shark-hunter in the style of the movie’s fabled character Quint, and he regrets deeply catching the “most magnificent creature.”

“Because of fishing industry practices at the time, that amazing creature is no longer swimming about.

“It may have been unavoidable based on the type of gear we were using. When I reflect back, I think what a waste it was. There was no respect given to fish that weren’t commercially viable.

“People contact me for interviews quite often but I’ve never spoken about it. I see that as not really our proudest moment.”

Recent research by the Canadian Shark Research Laboratory found that the animal was just 20 years old, a teenager in shark years. Experts believe great whites can live 60 to 80 years, a fact that hasn’t helped alleviate McKendrick’s guilt.

Had it not been caught in 1983, the shark would likely have grown substantially bigger.

Looking back now, McKendrick is glad that both he, and the general public, has a much better understanding of sharks.

“My generation was shaped by the movie Jaws,” he said. “I remember jumping into the water to swim after it came out and right away people were saying ‘Are you serious? There are sharks out there.’

“The movie created an interest in fish that might not exist otherwise. Then, I had no clue it was a great white. Now, I could recognize all kinds of different species.

“It’s really amazing the function sharks play in the ocean.”

After 17 years as a fisherman, McKendrick moved back to southern Ontario, his original home, where he now works in the technology industry managing websites.

“It’s much safer,” he said. “There are no magnificent animals being hurt here.”