SALISBURY, Mass. — An early morning fishing trip turned into a private whale watch for two local men.
"This is a story I'll talk about 10 years from now," said Steve Martin.
Martin and his friend were not far from shore on Salisbury Beach Wednesday morning when they ended up front row to a whale's feeding frenzy and captured it all on video.
"It's awe-inspiring, there’s a brief second where the water kind of starts to boil and you know the whale is on his way up and you can see the fish congregating and it’s a really surreal moment until the big creature reaches the water and opens its mouth," Martin said.
The two set out with hopes of catching striped bass, but they got much more than they bargained for.
"The fun part is that when he goes down you never know when he’s going to come back up, so I’m trying to video and wander and he would shock us and come way closer than we thought," he said.
Martin says the 30-40-foot whale was swimming just 100-yards offshore in less than 20-feet of water.
"The school just went on for probably miles in all directions, you can see the fish all going around so it was no doubt in every bite the whale was getting literally hundreds and hundreds of fish in his mouth," said Martin.
He says boaters nearby tried to keep their distance as they watched the majestic creature move back and forth, causing some uneasiness as the two were in a boat half the size of the humpback whale.
Nevertheless, he says it's something he will never forget.
"Never something this close, never seen a whale be this close to shore, this shallow of water underneath them, it was pretty incredible," he said. "They got their price of admission today at Salisbury Beach."