This is the first video evidence I have ever seen of a live Oarfish swimming in its natural habitat. They truly are remarkable creatures and one can certainly imagine that these are one of the possible explanations for sea serpent stories. One of the strange things is that the fish’s body does not move in a serpentine motion, but instead the very thing and elongated dorsal fin dances back and forth in a fluid wave propelling the fish forward.
Using a remotely operated vehicle, they caught a rare glimpse of the huge oarfish, perhaps the first sighting of the fish in its natural setting.
The oarfish, which can reach 17m long, has previously only been seen on a few occasions dying at the sea surface, or dead washed ashore.
Their strange appearance may have provided the basis for the sea serpent myths told by early ocean travellers.
Not only are they elongated, they also have a prominent dorsal fin which gives it an unusual “serpent” appearance.
Recalling the event Professor Benfield explained how at first, they thought the fish was simply a drilling pipe called a riser being lowered into the water.
“We saw this bright vertical shiny thing, I said ‘are they lowering more riser?’ as it looked like they were lowering a huge pipe.”
“We zoomed in a little bit and we said ‘that’s not a riser that’s a fish!’”
On another ROV survey in the Gulf of Mexico, the team came across the deep sea manefish (Paracaristius sp.).
This observation enabled the scientists to get a rare insight into the behaviour of the fish in its natural environment.
That gave them a further understanding of how it lives and what it looks like.
“When you see manefish collected in trawls they are incredibly beat up, they don’t look like much of a fish at all,” said Professor Benfield.
“So to actually see this fish in its natural habitat with its fins beautifully splayed out almost as a parachute, we get an idea that it’s a really good swimmer.”
Manefish are thought to steal food from or feed on a jellyfish-like animal called a siphonophore.
This may explain why the fish needs to swim so accurately.
“This fish has very precise control over its orientation and position, so if you are in very close proximity to an animal with tentacles that could potentially damage you, you want to able to really precisely control your locomotion.”
That’s right we’ve uploaded some of our awesome videos to YouFish2.com! This also marks the change in music as the previously used songs are copyrighted and we’re trying to move away from that as we get more popular. I’ve managed to replace a few of the videos on Vimeo, however YouTube fails to allow users to re-upload videos. According to YouTube my only option is to delete the video and start again, loosing all my views, comments, ratings, etc.. YA RIGHT!
Well at least moving forward we can do the right thing. The music in these videos was provided by The Total Camble Experience.
I know you’ve probably seen these videos before, but it spent some extra hours up late getting the audio to match perfectly (or as perfectly as possible) with the video. So please, for the sake of all the sleep I lost, watch them!
If you’re a fan of This is Fly and Catch Magazine, then you’ll love this. The good folks at Sleeping In The Dirt have released an awesome fishing zine featuring some incredible photos and stories. Did I mention there are zero ads?
“No Advertisement, No Sponsors, No Limits…No shit.”
We first saw what appeared to be an albino sailfish back in 2008. The image did not have a accompanying story with it and I had my doubts about it truly being and albino. Here are some incredible photos from just a couple of months ago near our old fishing grounds in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. As you can see there are images of the fish from several angles and there is no mistake about this one, it is definitely an albino sailfish! It’s extremely rare that any albino fish would grow this size, but a sailfish is the fastest fish in the sea, which clearly works to its advantage when avoiding predators!
These incredible photos were taken by Jon Schwartz
“They were flipping out because they’ve never seen anything like that in their lives, and they started looking at the eyes, and the eyes were red and pink, and they started hollering out albino, albino, and then they called into the marina, and that’s when we learned that it was a special thing.”
I miss Mexico more and more everyday, doubly so once the snow starts to fall. Now if the weather wasn’t bad enough this video features some absolutely huge bass! Check out this video from Sugar Lake!
We packed it in after an hour and headed to a nearby bar called “The Bomb” in Balmertown to grab some food and drink. The beer was good, but the food was pretty greasy and it left a lot to be desired as our last meal before the trip. I don’t think we talked much about food on our last trip, mostly because we didn’t bring any, and the same held true this year. In true Fishing Fury spirit, we we’re to become one with the lake over the next week. Aside from a single case of beer, that miraculously turned up empty on the fourth night, everything we would consume would come from the lake and the fish would be cleaned and cooked by the same hands that caught them, and there is no meal more satisfying than that.
