This is a whale of a fish story but this one is true.
It ended up with a boat beached along the shore in Seaside Park, New Jersey after being struck by a whale.
"He was six feet in front of me, kind of like if you've ever saw 'Jaws,’” Robert Riley said. “The fish just breached the water and I was like, 'It's going to land on us.'"
The day started out peacefully until they encountered a large school of bunker fish which they knew would attract sea bass.
They had no idea a juvenile whale was also feeding on the same school of fish.
“About 9:30 in the morning, about five hundred yards off the beach. Had a bunker on and just live lined it,” Riley said. “Probably the scariest part, the part I’ll never get out is the whale coming out of the water.”
Riley and a fellow fisherman were both tossed. Riley said the only thing he remembers is hearing the whale slam down on the boat.
"The noise of the whale hitting the boat, it was like a thud that you would - I mean it was loud," Riley said.
The young whale apparently lingered in the water for a while after losing some of its skin in the collision.
A witness took pictures of the whale close to shore.
"We saw a lot of fish jumping around beside him,” Amanda Brefach said. “And the mouth would come up out of the water and it looks like he was feeding on the little bait fish."
Riley says he usually likes to fish in the bay so after the close encounter with a whale, the ocean is off-limits.
"It's a memory I'll never get rid of, but I got to say I don't think I'll ever be in the ocean again," Riley exclaimed.
The man’s boat is named Nothing But Net because he’s a basketball fan. His friends are now joking it got dunked on by a whale.