A fisherman witnessed ‘the coolest thing he’d ever seen’ when he spotted an enormous tiger shark attacking a hammerhead shark.
Ryan Willsea was amazed when he managed to film the sight off the coast of Louisiana with his GoPro while hunting for tuna.
He was initially reeling in the hammerhead shark – which he believes was between seven and eight feet long – when the 1,000lbs tiger shark suddenly lunged at the fish.
Ryan Willsea was amazed when he managed to film the amazing sight off the coast of Louisiana with his GoPro while hunting for tuna
He was initially reeling in the hammerhead shark -which he believes was between seven and eight feet long – when the 1,000lbs tiger shark suddenly lunged at the fish
‘You were pulling two sharks in for five minutes,’ one of the amateur fishermen says as the footage from the Gulf of Mexico begins.
Willsea plunges his camera underwater where, at a close distance in the green water, the two beasts of the sea can be seen viciously fighting.
The tiger shark’s mouth can be seen wide open as it sinks its teeth into the mid-section of the hammerhead, having taken the latter right off Willsea’s line.
With its adversary trapped in its jaw the tiger shark flings the small animal savagely from side to side in the water, swimming close to the surface as it does so.
Eventually, bored with the struggle and seemingly uninterested in eating the fish, the tiger shark swims off, right underneath Willsea’s camera.
The fisherman said of the rare battle: ‘Probably the coolest thing I’ve ever seen in person,’ and called the video ‘Once in a life time footage’.
Willsea plunges his camera underwater where, at a close distance in the green water, the two beasts of the sea can be seen viciously fighting
The tiger shark’s mouth can be seen wide open as it sinks its teeth into the mid-section of the hammerhead, having taken the latter right off Willsea’s line
With its adversary trapped in its jaw the tiger shark flings the small animal savagely from side to side in the water, swimming close to the surface as it does so
Eventually, bored with the struggle and clearly uninterested in eating the fish, the tiger shark swims off, right underneath Willsea’s camera
Initially posted on Instagram the amazing footage has gone viral after being uploaded to Facebook by US TV fishing show Gulf Outdoors.
It has since been viewed over a million times and shared nearly 6,000 times.
Tiger sharks are second only to great whites for attacks on people and have excellent senses of sight and smell as well as sharp, highly serrated teeth and powerful jaws – making them terrifying killers.
Hammerhead sharks are also consummate predators but are in fact fairly small and considered harmless to humans.
Their prey of choice is a stingray which they pin to the ocean floor using their wide heads.