A great white shark came up with a surefire way to make sure it got a good dinner; steal someone else’s fish.
The fisherman in the video was on a boat off the coast of Massachusetts with his friends when he caught a fish on his line. He reeled in the catch until it was close enough to see in the water, but unfortunately the fish never made it onto the boat.
Out of nowhere the great white shark appeared and stole the fish, making off with the fisherman’s prize.
Check out the video here:
The fisherman seemed entirely unaware of what was about to happen as he reeled in the fish, though the fact that someone on the boat said something about a ‘bait fish’ might have been a sign of the upcoming events.
A bait fish is a small fish that is often used to attract larger predatory fish, and that technique would have worked extremely well for the people in this video, if that’s what they had actually been planning to do.
In fact, the shark’s appearance was a complete surprise, as the men’s reactions might suggest.
The shark was met with gasps and a call of ‘holy sh*t!’ as it swooped in and stole the catch.
The video was shared online, where the situation was explained further.
The caption read:
We were fishing, aboard the Head Hunter out of Chatham, Massachusetts. At the time of this video, we were roughly five miles off Nantucket. I was filming my brother reeling in a striped bass when 10-feet from the boat, a great white shark came out of nowhere and ate the fish.
The group continued to express their shock as they watched the shark disappear with the bass.
That was certainly one cunning fish!
Another shark who enjoyed an easy meal was a great white that made a feast out of a lifeless humpback whale.
The whale had been towed out to sea with the hope of attracting sharks which could then be tagged by professional shark taggers.
Check it out here:
The video was captured by Keith Poe, who has worked as a shark tagger for 25 years.
Explaining his role, Keith said:
I work with many scientists in assisting with tagging sharks, and extracting samples, whatever they need. I tag and release many species of sharks.
Due to the experience I have, I am frequently called out for various situations, and occasionally a dead whale will wash up and I help assist in bringing it out to sea, which gives me the opportunity to attract sharks and tag them.
The great white tore chunks from the poor whale, swimming around the huge carcass with glee.
The shark tagger described the shark as having eaten so much of the whale that ‘she was swimming around upside-down like she was intoxicated’.
Keith added:
In this particular video this Great White ate off of this whale for 18 hours. I was able to capture many amazing videos and shots during her feast, along with other sharks.
I’m sure the huge meal would have satisfied the shark’s hunger for a while!
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Emily Brown first began delivering important news stories aged just 13, when she launched her career with a paper round. She graduated with a BA Hons in English Language in the Media from Lancaster University, and went on to become a freelance writer and blogger. Emily contributed to The Sunday Times Travel Magazine and Student Problems before becoming a journalist at UNILAD, where she works on breaking news as well as longer form features.