When Noah Thompson and his brother Jacob went on a fishing trip on Baja’s East Cape, they hoped to find fish. And find fish they did, although it wasn’t exactly the kind they expected. Instead, they stumbled across an extraordinarily rare species that lives in the deep sea: an oarfish.
The Thompson brothers were driving to their spot when they spotted the shimmering, mythical creature lying in the sand.
“We noticed it from a distance as we were cruising up on our four-wheeler,” Noah Thompson told The Dodo. “My brother was off the quad before I could even stop it and had his hands on his head screaming — he knew exactly what it was.”
The oarfish they found was nearly 10 feet long, but just a juvenile. They have been found at over 50 feet in length.
Generally, when oarfish are found, they’re dead on the beach. Back in 2015, a 14-footer was found off California’s Catalina Island. Although finding an oarfish is generally a once-in-a-lifetime experience, the one the Thompsons found was even more special.
“Upon running up on him it became apparent that he was still breathing and we must have been just minutes behind the wave that brought him ashore,” Noah wrote on Instagram. “I wasn’t about to touch this thing that looked like it just came out of the Stranger Things upside down portal, but knowing exactly what it was my brother carefully placed him back in the water, and after a couple of pictures he was revived and sent back on his way. The future wasn’t looking so bright for this guy, as the oarfish typically resides between 500-3,000 feet, but I’d like to think that he’ll go on to roam the Sea of Cortez for many more years, hopefully reaching proportions similar to that of the second photo, an oarfish which washed ashore on the same beach many years ago.”
Although they didn’t catch as many fish as they’d hoped, the find made the trip one they’ll never forget. “Unfortunately,” Noah continued, “our good deed did not pay dividends in the form of stretched fly lines, but it was a hell of a consolation prize.”
