Hilarious Boston Man, Michael Bergin, Flips Out Over Saltwater Sunfish [Video, NSFW]

A NSFW video of a man, who states his name is Michael Bergin, excited beyond belief at catching a common saltwater sunfish, is quickly gaining attention on social media today for its hilarity.

“I don’t know what this is,” the Boston man can be heard shouting with a thick New England accent about the sunfish he has caught, “but Jay says its a big f*****g sea turtle. It’s a baby whale man. Holy sh*t we are experiencing a baby f*****g whale right here dude.”

The hilariously expletive-laden video variously refers to the sunfish as a sea turtle, a whale, a flounder, and a tuna.

“Oh man we’re calling the Coast Guard. Holy s**t!” Begin exclaims, “Holy s**t we can get some big money for this!”

The saltwater sunfish is also known as the ocean sunfish or mola mola. The term sunfish is used colloquially to describe a number of both fresh and saltwater fish species.

OceanSunfish.org reports that in the 1990s up to 26.1 percent of the catch of the broad swordfish fishery caught using drift nets was made up of mola mola or ocean sunfish. While being perhaps somewhat disturbing, these figures seem to indicate that the ocean sunfish is plentiful, suggesting that Mr. Bergin’s excitement that the fishing duo should “call the aquarium” was likely unfounded.

As the feature photo, which was taken in April 1910 on New Catalina Island in California, shows, ocean sunfish can grow to impressive sizes. The specimen in the photo was estimated to weigh 3,500 pounds.

Freshwater sunfish are much smaller than than their saltwater cousins. The Florida state record for a spotted sunfish is 0.83 pounds, as reported by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Sunfish may also be called bluegills in Ontario, where the provincial record is 1 pound 13 ounces. The world record catch for a bluegill is 4 pounds 12 ounces, as reported by Land Big Fish. Another, similar, sunfish in Ontario is the pumpkinseed sunfish, for which the Ontario record is one pound.

Ocean sunfish, such as the one caught by Boston’s Michael Bergin, are not typically kept in aquariums, though there are some. The Lisbon Oceanarium in Spain is reported to be home to an ocean sunfish, and a specimen is said to be popular with visitors at the Kaiyukan Aquarium in Osaka, Japan.

Neither freshwater or saltwater sunfish are said to be particularly enjoyable as food, though the Monterey Bay Aquarium notes that they are a popular dish in Japan.

The Large Pelagics Research Lab reported on a practice of fishers to “fin” sunfish when caught as bycatch, cutting their fins off, causing them to slowly drown and die, as a means of culling the population of what they see as a nuisance fish.

[Public Domain Photo Courtesy Wikipedia Commons]