A group of fishermen reeled in a bizarre catch after hooking a Bluefin tuna off the coast of New Jersey.
“We were trolling, about 70 miles from Manasquan Inlet, for Bluefin tuna, and we hooked a very nice fish,” said Captain Dave Bender, of the Jenny Lee Sportfishing charter boat. “We didn’t see him, but we couldn’t gain much on him.”
The fight lasted for about 40 minutes before the tuna stopped fighting. Bender assumed the fish must have gotten its tail tangles up in the fishing line and couldn’t fight anymore.
It turns out it did get caught up in something — a sharks mouth.
“[It] gets about 75 feet from the boat, it’s very obvious, we see just the head, the spine and the tail, and the tiger shark swimming right to the boat,”
“So that thing came in … it was like that old cartoon, when the cat gets the fish and [strips it clean],” he tells Fox. “It looked like the logo for the Bonefish Grill.”
The tuna measured in at 68 inches, meaning it probably weighed anywhere from 160 to 200 pounds.
They kept fishing and ended up catching two sharks.
“[Before we caught] the second shark, I turned to my co-captain,” Bender said. “I said, ‘If this is a shark, we’re f—ing out of here.’ And sure enough — shark.”
