When photographer and fisherman Brooke Sattar and her friends set out for a day of prawn fishing, they expected to find plenty of the tiny, tasty crustaceans. As they dragged the trap back up to the surface, however, the sea creature attached was just slightly larger than a prawn. Actually, it was an octopus so large that everyone on board was temporarily at a loss for words.
“You’re kidding! That is so huge!” Brooke exclaimed as the huge tentacles broke the surface. A few of her crewmates’ immediate reaction was the desire to cook and eat the massive mollusk. Luckily for the octopus, however, they thought better of it.
“Today’s catch caught us!” Brooke Sattar wrote in the caption of the unbelievable video. “The octopus held on for a bit then let go and swam back down. Coolest sight I’ve seen!”
@brookesirah Today’s catch caught us! The octopus held on for a bit then let go and swam back down. Coolest signt i’ve seen! #pacificoctopus ♬ original sound – brookesattar
“That…is a kraken,” one user laughed in reply. “People just casually giggling at a kraken,” another said. “That would scare me more than a shark,” added a third.
Contrary to popular belief, the mammoth sea creature isn’t a Kraken but a Northern Giant Pacific Octopus. The species is native to the temperature waters of the northern Pacific off the coast of British Columbia where the fishing expedition took place.
The incredible size of the animal is immediately explained by the fact that it “grows bigger and lives longer than any other octopus species,” according to National Geographic. “The size record is held by a specimen that was 30 feet across and weighed more than 600 pounds.”
Fisherman Recounts Her Encounter With Giant Octopus
Though a true monarch of mollusks, the Giant Pacific Octopus lives only around four years. Sadly, they die soon after reproducing. Their favorite food? Shrimp, crabs, clams, lobsters, fish, squid, scallops, and even other octopuses. Clearly, this particular cephalopod wasn’t too happy that the prawn fishermen stole all his precious prawns.
In a recent interview with Global News, Brooke Sattar described the thrilling encounter. When they first began pulling up the trap, it was so heavy they thought they had managed to fill it with prawns. As it neared the surface, however, they realized just how wrong they were.
“We pulled up a big octopus,” she said. “It held on for two or three minutes, it wasn’t long at all. And then it just let go and swam away.”
Though the encounter was less than a minute from start to finish, Sattar says that the awe of catching the octopus made time slow to a near-standstill. “It did not feel like three minutes but then I looked at my video and thought ‘oh that was only a 20-second video,'” she said with a laugh.
“I think it’s pretty awesome that I was able to share this experience with so many people around the world because you don’t see it every day,” Sattar said of her 40 million views on TikTok. “I love ocean life so I was very excited and surprised.”
