Fishing from a bridge has its own set of challenges. One is trying to land a heavy fish when you’re standing more than 30 feet above the water’s surface. Just ask the Florida fisherman who’s catching flack on social media for his poor netting skills thanks to a video that shows him nearly losing a cobia to a hungry shark. Viewers who have lost fish to sharks in the past be advised: This video will almost certainly give you anxiety.
“Fish is like, ‘GET ME IN THE NET!’” one commenter writes on Instagram. “Probably the worst net job I’ve ever seen,” says another. “Whoever had that net needs to be fired and sent back to training,” writes a third.
The video that @ktadventures1997 shared over the weekend begins as one fisherman is already hooked up. He’s standing on a bridge next to a few other anglers, who lean over the edge to see what he’s caught. The camera then pans down to the water where the hooked cobia rolls to the surface as one of the other anglers lowers his bridge net.
Unlike a traditional landing net, which has a net bag attached to a handle, a bridge net (also known as a pier net) is more hoop-shaped, and it’s designed to be raised and lowered with a rope. Otherwise, they work in much the same way. The key is to get the fish inside the net before it comes off the hook or is otherwise lost.
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This is where the net man in the video nearly comes up short. He keeps dangling and swinging the net around the spent cobia, pulling it in and out of the water. At one point, he even dips it briefly underneath the fish but can’t seal the deal.
The comical episode suddenly turns chaotic when the dark, menacing form of a large shark appears and starts swimming toward the fish. The anglers shout and the cobia goes bonkers when the shark tries to nab it off the line from below. The shark misses, circles the fish a few times, and then it swipes at the fish again while the other anglers yell at the net man to “get him up, get him up!” A typical angler, he’s quick to blame his equipment.
“This fucking net, dude!” the net man yells. “This fucking net, bro!”
After the second missed opportunity, the cobia seemingly goes dead on the line as the shark circles and the net man continues his fumbling attempt to land the fish. Finally, he swings the net underneath the cobia and scoops it, at last pulling the fish up to the bridge and away from the hungry shark.
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“Give me some skin, man!” the net man bellows as the anglers high-five one another.
While he seemed proud at the time, he likely didn’t expect the clip to be viewed by so many people on social media. (It’s been liked by tens of thousands of users on Instagram and viewed more than half a million times on TikTok.) And unless there’s someone else trying to take credit for his effort, it seems the net man has responded to at least one of the comments made at his expense.
“I know,” Instagram user Chris Dangelone replies. “I’m not proud of it either.”