Cody Martin, 16, just wanted something to show off to the kids at the Roundhouse Aquarium’s summer camp in Manhattan Beach, California. He got a little bit more than he expected.
He went out on Manhattan Pier to catch a shark or ray when his friend spotted something in the water. Thinking it was an injured thresher shark, he grabbed his surfboard and paddled out to try to save the shark. Then his dad, and camp director, Eric Martin, yelled out to tell Cody that it was a yellowtail.
“I get out there and this thing is just gigantic,” Cody recalled, shocked to see such a huge yellowtail so close to the pier. “Yellowtail have been overfished for so many years out here.”
Knowing the fish was going to die, Martin wrestled the yellowtail up onto his surfboard. It had been injured when some dolphins moved into the area off the pier feeding. He got the fish back to the pier, where his dad hauled it up with a rope.
“I’ve caught every fish you can possibly catch off this pier,” Cody said. Bat rays, sharks and barracuda – but never a yellow tail, according to Easy Reader News. “I’m kind of excited to be one of those people now.”
The fish did turn out to be the educational opportunity they were looking for. They used it to show a fish that big and instruct the kids on the feeding habits of dolphins. –Brian McClintock
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