If you’ve ever done any sort of fishing, you know that some of the most exciting angling is when fish are actively feeding on the surface. And even if you're not an angler, simply seeing a school of blitzing, feeding fish is pretty amazing. It's like watching one of those nature documentaries about the Serengeti plains, where a pride of lions sneaks up on a herd of feeding wildebeest or a leopard drops out of a tree on an unsuspecting antelope. Only this is the watery version.

Fins to the left, fins to the right... hungry sharks and false albacore shred a school of bay anchovies while an angler hooks up.

Fins to the left, fins to the right... hungry sharks and false albacore shred a school of bay anchovies while an angler hooks up.



In today’s Manic Monday video by Outer Banks Fly Fishing, schools of bay anchovies are hunted down and eaten by false albacore (a type of tuna) and a few different species of sharks. This scene happens every fall off North Carolina's Outer Banks, when massive schools of bay anchovies head out into the ocean (where false albacore, sharks, birds, and even whales, are waiting).

Written by: Gary Reich
Gary Reich is a Chesapeake Bay-based freelance writer and photojournalist with over 25 years of experience in the marine industry. He is the former editor of PropTalk Magazine and was the managing editor of the Waterway Guide. His writing and photography have been published in PassageMaker Magazine, Soundings, Fly Fishing in Salt Waters, Yachting Magazine, and Lakeland Boating, among others.