Brains and brawn on this bull shark.
Fishing from a bridge or pier is one of the easiest ways to get into saltwater fishing.
Sure, you can spend thousands on a boat or charter trip and spend tons of time trying to learn where to find schools of fish, but if you can just make your way to some structure that juts out into the water, you’ll be in range of a ton of worthy species.
But where there’s gamefish, there’s going to be predators, as this fisherman in the Florida Keys found out firsthand.
While spending a day out on a bridge in the southernmost part of the lower 48, a fisherman named Chad hooked up with his first cobia of the year.
Cobia, also called black kingfish or black salmon, range quite a bit in size. The largest of the species can clock in at over 6 feet in length and 170 pounds in weight, but the most common ones caught stay in the 30 pound range. They migrate long distances, wintering in the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico but make their way as far north as Massachusetts in summer months.
Their spawning is also quite interesting, as females will release around 1.2 million tiny, floating eggs into the water as many as 30 times per year. These eggs get washed around the water until they hatch and the survivors can live as long as 15 years.
The cobia that Chad caught wasn’t one of the bigger ones, but was still a nice catch, looking to be well over 2 feet. Unfortunately, that was as big as this one was going to get, as it got chomped by a much larger predator just seconds after getting back into the water.
Bull sharks are some of the most aggressive sharks out there, known to protect their territory and hunt down prey with ferocious violence.
Well, one such bull shark happened to be in the area when he saw this cobia come flying down from the heavens, landing just feet away. And boy oh boy did he seize the moment.
As the cobia started making its way to deeper waters, the shark attacked from underneath, swallowing the fish whole while Chad watched in amazement.
“Swim away nicely. OH he got destroyed!”
Insane moment to catch on video.
No matter how many other predators roam the oceans, there’s just going to be no competing with the prowess of sharks.
