This Great White Shark Just Tried To Re-Enact The Captain Quint Scene From Jaws (Plus A Bonus Fish Story)

“Wooooooooah! Oh my god! Oh my god! HOLY SHIT!”… couldn’t have said it better myself! KEEP YOUR HANDS AND FEET IN THE BOAT FOLKS! I think it is safe to say we’re going to need a new chumbag after this because that thing just tore that ass up! Movies get a bad rap as unrealistic sometimes and a mammoth shark jumping on a boat to chop Captain Quint could definitely be placed in that category, but I think if one of these boaters slipped over the side right there we could have seen a pretty spot on re-enactment of this scene…

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They were on a one way path to a deafening silence and a boat that looks like this.

Sharks eating chum bags is nothing new, in fact its a tale as old as time. Shit, a shark eating a chum bag is partially responsible for me getting a job at Barstool. That’s what I pulled out of my bag (after the Wallaby) to show Dave as a symbol of the idea for Barstool Outdoors. I’ll never forget the sound my entire life. It was late, late, late at night sitting on the dock in the Florida Keys. Me and my best friend John were sitting there for hours on end chasing big ass sharks off the dock. We were little kids at the time and had caught Bonnetheads, Nurses, and little Sharpnose Sharks off the dock, but never any real sea monsters. We’d heard they were out there though and got permission to stay out late from our parents.

After spending the whole night chumming and getting spooled by huge sharks on our little spinning rods, we were sitting on the wooden bench just hanging out exhausted. It was dead quiet. I’ll never forget the sound I heard next, “SWISH CRICK CRICK SPLASH!” It scared the living shit out of me in the middle of the pitch black night. Next thing you know we jumped up like our ass was on fire and running to the edge, we looked down to see the biggest goddamn Lemon Shark we’d ever seen thrashing this chum bag so hard we just about shit our pants. It looked exactly like the video above. Pure violence. After a few more seconds… WHAM, it disappeared back into the black ocean. We didn’t talk for a whole minute, just completely in awe.

Not 10 minutes later, our big rod gets smoked. Holy shit, what if its that fish?! We set the hook and settled in. An hour later and multiple close calls, we had him close to the lights… it was really happening! My dad came out, pissed that we had missed our curfew by a longshot, but we didn’t care. “LOOK!” we told him and pointed in the water. It was far from a record in retrospect, but goddamn if it wasn’t a healthy ass Lemon Shark, our first one by ourselves off the dock and one of the most special fish I’ve ever caught. You can go out with a captain or your dad/grandpa as much as you want and catch big fish til your arms get sore, but you never forget the first time you do every step by yourself and catch a fish you’re proud of. We released the fish and I didn’t stop smiling for a year straight.

(The actual picture my dad took)

Before we packed up and went in I untied the chum bag and saw a giant jaw shaped hole in the side of it. I took it home and hung it up on my wall, a reminder and trophy of that night. It stayed on the wall above my bed, hanging from the mouth of my fiberglass Bull Shark taxidermy, and I slept below it every night of my life until the day I took it down to bring to Barstool to show Dave as part of my presentation… and goddamnit it worked!