It was a shark catch for the books for Brett Reeder.
Reeder hooked a 5- to 6-foot lemon shark in the Keys with his family, when hooks got stuck and he started wrestling with this catch.
"Crazy thing is we do it all the time," said Reeder. "It's pretty normal to be able to get the hooks out of them and I just got a little unlucky."
During the tug-of-war, the shark tore into his pinky, with a real possibility it would come off.
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"They're usually pretty easy to get a hold of," he said. "You can grab the back of their heads, pick them up and let them go safely."
Reeder was airlifted to Jackson South. With more than a hundred stitches, a pin, and a case, doctors were able to save the finger.
"They’ve got me in a hard cast on the bottom because all 4 tendons were cut on top," he said. "They wanted my hand to be propped up like this for about six weeks for the tendon to heal perfectly."
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Reeder posted his story on TikTok and has since gone viral. He says he's hooked hundreds of sharks, but that this was his one unlucky encounter.
"This would be more a message of education," he said. "Just be super careful, even someone who unhooks this all the time. It can happen pretty quick so just be careful."
Reeder and his family have already started fishing again since the incident.
