Father and son went on a fishing trip offshore and had a close encounter with a huge Humpback whale. Luckily for us, it was caught on camera!
Zach Piller, 23, and his father went on a fishing trip for some striped bass and tuna near Belmar, New Jersey when they captured a prized memory, one they may never forget.
According to NBC News, there was vigorous movement in the water, looking like a vortex with a swarm of small fish jumping around, just before the humpback’s head appeared alongside the duo’s 18-foot boat.
An enormous humpback whale breached the sea merely inches away from them. Piller had his phone out to record his dad’s big catch and instead caught this shocking view on his phone camera.
“Oh-oh,” we can hear Piller’s father in the video just before the humongous creature breached the surface and almost hit the boat.
It’s rare for a humpback whale to breach this near a boat. The whale leaped several feet from the water and into the air. “Got that on video! Got that on video!” Zach Piller shouted. “What the fuck? What the fuck?”
Apparently, feeding on small fish close to shore is not unusual, but breaching close to a boat is, according to Eric Otjen, the vice president of zoological operations at SeaWorld San Diego.
“This whale just happened to chase bait fish right next to a boat,” Piller said. “You probably have a better chance of winning the lottery” than the whale popping up “where it popped up.”
