World's Largest Fish 'Freaking Out' Fishermen off Texas Coast

Two Texas fishermen were stunned when they encountered an unexpected sea creature off the side of their deep-sea fishing charter boat.

Alexus Broome and Addison Smith, with Gulf Magic Fishing, had spotted a huge whale shark, the largest fish species in the world, as they were fishing 6 miles off the coast of Port Aransas, a city on Mustang Island, on the Texas coast. The pair took out their cameras to capture the behemoth beast on film.

"We saw a whale shark 6 miles offshore today out of port a!! How exciting," Gulf Magic Fishing captioned a video of the shark on Instagram.

Whale sharks are the largest fish, and therefore the largest shark, in the world, growing up to 40 feet in length on average, with some reports of the largest-ever specimen being over 60 feet. Despite their terrifying size, these creatures are harmless to humans, and don't even have teeth, instead filter-feeding on plankton and fish eggs.

"Those things get to 40 foot. And this was a juvenile so it was probably something around 20 to 25 foot," Broome told local news outlet 12NewsNow.

"It was a bucket-list item, or bucket-list species, to see offshore. We were both freaking out when we saw it, and it's still crazy to think we saw it," Smith added.

The shark stayed near the surface for around a minute while the men filmed it, before diving into the waters. Whale sharks can dive to depths of several thousand feet, with the deepest-ever recorded dive topping 6,000 feet. The Texas fishermen expressed their surprise at how close to the shore the shark had been spotted.

Whale sharks are found around the world in tropical waters above 70 degrees Fahrenheit, and migrate to Ningaloo Reef on the western coast of Australia to breed every spring. They are extremely docile around snorkelers and swimmers, which makes them an attractive species for tourists.

The whale shark is listed as "endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), with data suggesting that the global population has declined by around 50 percent across the last 75 years.

The whale shark's population decline is related to overfishing, both deliberate and accidental by-catch, as well as pollution and vessel strikes. They were fished for their meat and fins until very recently, but they are now under the CMS Memorandum of Understanding on the Conservation of Migratory Sharks. Their fishing is banned in many countries, including the Philippines, India and Taiwan. Hundreds of the sharks are still captured and killed illegally, with China alone slaughtering up to 600 each year as of 2014.

Whale sharks can also die due to entanglement in fishing gear, and being hit by ships and tourist boats, as well as because of pollution from oil spills.

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