iStockphoto / arlutz73
Offshore fishing trips are the best because while you might have a target (fish) species in mind when you leave the dock there’s no telling what you will run into on the open sea. I was on a marlin fishing trip where we the boat was suddenly surrounded by a school of a thousand dolphins (in the Pacific) and I’ve been in the Gulf of Mexico after snapper when whale sharks showed up out of nowhere.
It’s these own personal ‘National Geographic moments’ that have always made offshore fishing trips special to me. And it’s what makes me so jealous I wasn’t there to witness this moment off the Jersey Shore when a Humpback Whale breached and bumped this father and son’s fishing boat.
They were chasing tuna off the Jersey Shore and one of them was fighting a fish, if you look closely you can see the bent fishing rod on the left side of the boat, when a Humpback Whale erupted from the water. The whale breaches right through a school of baitfish, likely menhaden, as it’s searching for an easy meal next to the fishermen.
Breaching Humpback Whale Bumps Into Boat Off New Jersey Shore During Fishing Trip
That truly is a once-in-a-lifetime experience for Zack Piller and his father. The Humpback Whale breached and then bumped into their boat on the way back into the water, forcing Piller to have to grab a hold of the boat’s gunwhale to stop himself from potentially falling overboard.
If this encounter is giving you de ja vu, you’re not alone…
It seems like there have been more close calls with whales this year than in years past. Just two months ago footage was captured of a Humpback Whale in Massachusetts leaping from the water and landing on a boat:
And five months ago we saw this footage from Mexico of a boat traveling too fast in a restricted area when it struck a whale and sent the boat flying through the air:
Luckily, in this instance where the whale breached off the Jersey Shore and bumped the fishing boat, nobody was harmed, including the whale.