Watch: Louisiana fishermen surrounded by shark feeding frenzy
A fisherman wanted tuna but found himself surrounded by crazed sharks going after smaller fish in the Gulf of Mexico.
Watch: Sharks in a feeding frenzy off of Louisiana
A man and his girlfriend came upon a shark feeding frenzy 15 miles off the Louisiana coast. Listen to the sharks bang the side of the boat as they surround the fishing vessel. The chaos when on for minutes.
What started as a quiet day of bluefin tuna fishing erupted into an all-out battle as a group found themselves in the middle of a shark feeding frenzy.
Dillon May thought he got lucky when he happened upon roiling water about 15 miles off the coast of Venice, Louisiana. He assumed the commotion was a "tuna boil," which is a group of tuna in a feeding frenzy.
The group steered the fishing boat toward the turbulent water.
"Then we saw it was sharks on a bait pod, never seen anything like it," May told Storyful.
The bait pod was a large school of menhaden fish.
Gulf menhaden populations are spread throughout the Northern Gulf of Mexico and play a central role in this ecosystem.
(NOAA)
"Possibly the most important fish that swims in the ocean," says OutdoorLife.com, because they are a favorite snack for predatory game fish. "Stripers can't resist the oily scent."
As May found out, neither can sharks.
"By the time we got there, the sharks had found the pod and pushed them up against the boat to feast on them," May said.
Listen to the video as the sharks continuously bump the boat. He pans around, and the crazed animals are jumping, lunging, leaping and circling, and the chaos turned the water surface white with so much activity.
The sharks are literally worked into a frenzy where their spasmodic movements at the surface make the water look like it is boiling.
(Dillon May via Storyful / FOX Weather)
"I'm soaking wet," May said while getting splashed by the energetic fish launching into the air and hitting the boat.
There is no word about the humans catching any fish that day, just the sharks.