Mystery Fish

Every now and then, when fishing, you’ll come across something strange or special (or both). This weekend, I happened upon something that was a little of both.

I’ve been fishing Boston Harbor for about 20 years, and I’ve never seen anything like this. I’ve seen seals, sunfish (mola mola), and even tuna within the city limits, but this was a little different - and it was certainly well within the city limits.

It was probably about 5:15am when we pulled our 18ft Boston Whaler up to the ledge formed by the main shipping channel in Boston and a nearby flat. You can usually pick up some bass here in the morning before boat traffic picks up, and we usually head out there right away unless we get distracted by breaking fish on the way out. As we slowed down and focused on the recorder looking for marks, we noticed something swimming slowly along the surface close by. We inched closer to it, but it sounded before we could get a good look, then it popped up again a little further away. This time we tried to loop around it in hopes we could get ahead of it and kill the engine. Well it worked and the fish came up again within a casts’ length away.

I pulled out my trusty camera that I usually forget at home to try and get some footage of the fish, while my Dad grabbed a pole and threw a 9” Got Stryper at the mystery fish. As the soft plastic hit the water a little beyond the fish you could see it turn as if the bait had caught its interest. A second later, - WHAM - the fish took a swipe at the soft plastic, but unfortunately missed the bait. That was it, the fish didn’t come back up and we refocused on striper fishing.

Swordfish? Shark? Cobia? What could it have been? You’ll have to decide for yourself.