It’s a clear, beautiful day and both men are ecstatic as the fishing rod bends down into the deep blue waters. This isn’t any ol’ candid video. This is an intentional series by these two fishermen with a professional video introduction! They have plenty of fans—and they know just how to keep their audience entertained. The next scene cuts to one of the fishermen securing his fighting belt to take manual control of the fishing pole. He leans back and holds the pole steady while it reels. “This thing hasn’t even stopped. It’s like a freight train,” says the fisherman holding the pole. He knows that whatever he’s caught is big and has a big bite. He could feel the tension of the pole as the underwater sea monster took hold of the swordfish bait. As the video goes on, the men ponder what type of underwater creature they may have captured. The fisherman with the fighting belt and the pole looks back and says, “Very aggressive, whatever it is.” Several minutes go by and the man in the hot seat continues wrestling with his catch. His friend cracks open a beer and says that if the catch is what they think it is, then his friend is living out his dream. The video continues as the men chat about what they could have possibly caught. They’re looking forward to the moment when they can catch a glimpse of it. Several hours later, they’re able to pull up their catch. It appears to be a shark. As they bring it closer to the boat, they’re able to identify it as a thresher shark. But something is off with their catch—its head and tail are intact, but its body is missing, with only its skeleton keeping it together. Although an epic moment, this is not the catch they were hoping for. They both express their disappointment after spending hours wrestling with the thresher shark. Despite feeling devastated, the fisherman goes on to explain and highlight different parts of the thresher shark. He comments that something monstrous must have taken a big bite out of his catch deep beneath the sea. These relentless fishermen continue out on the open waters as night falls. They take turns and now another fisherman takes the pole. They have another catch, and he battles with it as he reels it up to the surface. The second catch turns out to be another thresher shark. Except this one is alive and well and using its very long tail to try and get away. The man cuts the line and watches as the thresher shark swims quickly away from their boat. They celebrate this surprise encounter with a high five. The video closes with a short recap of the footage captured and with a quick introduction for the next video in their series.
Is This Normal Behavior?
You may be wondering. Is it normal for a fisherman who has hooked a thresher shark to wind up with a half-eaten carcass? While we don’t have statistics on this kind of occurrence happening, it’s safe to say that scenario could definitely have played out in the past and can happen again. But why? Thresher sharks can get up to 400 pounds and put up a terrible struggle to get free once hooked by a fisherman. As this video proves, it can take hours to reel in a shark of that size and strength. Because the shark is hooked, it doesn’t have the ability to escape predators who may approach. Apex predators of the thresher shark include killer whales and larger sharks like great white sharks, tiger sharks, and whale sharks. Given the long amount of time that this particular thresher shark was on the line as the fisherman struggled to reel it in, the chances of a larger shark spying it and chomping down were probably good. Ready for more water adventures? Check out this next video: Watch a Shark Bite an Alligator In South Carolina
