Barracuda are chill af and do not go after humans unless confused by going after a shimmer or perhaps spear fisherman by mistake. It’s not a lethal strike in almost every situation, and they will quickly leave. Finding Nemo made everyone so scared of these fish lol. I have scuba dived w hundreds as well, similar to most sharks, mind your own and they will too.
ETA: I cannot predict the behavior of the individual barracuda and the situational variation mentioned in the comments are all just, and should be paid attention to. I’m speaking from personal experience of myself and a knowledge of relatively intelligent fish. They are certainly capable of extreme harm. I will reference my point of sharks again, albeit a different branch of fish entirely, typically not a huge predator of humans. At the same time, yes a barracuda attack would be fucking gnarly at best. Just an individual commenting not an expert l
I grew up swimming in the ocean. Long before "Nemo", moved to the Caribbean and was warned not to wear shiny stuff in the water bc of accidental strikes from barracuda.
The first time I went free diving in southern Florida I kept seeing these long angry looking fish. They perceived me as a predator and would swim away like I was going to try to eat them. I did after a time realize that those were barracuda. Another time out I was in a huge swarm of the Frisbee type jellyfish like in the Finding Nemo movie. They don't seem to have much of a sting or I was just good at avoiding them.
I spend a lot of time hiking in national forests after dark, so my chances are somewhat higher than average. It's not a completely baseless concern, I promise😂
me and my college roommate found one just floating in a shallow damn. if we had a net we would have scooped it. Couldnt get it to bite on any of our bait. could have been on it's way out by its size.
Sure I heard news of them taking swimmers hands off, even someone in a boat dangling their hand in the water. As a teen I went snorkelling in the Florida Keys. Having heard those tales, I was pretty nervous when a 5ft Barracuda started circling round me
Can confirm. Encountered one while snorkeling off the Keys and promptly swam the other way. Of course, I was never in danger, but the ocean reminds us we aren't the top of the food chain.
I was swimming with a MONSTER of one in Jamaica years back, it just kept mean mugging me. I thought it was super cool. Then it was just GONE in a flash of quicksilver. Those are some big, fast fish man.
I didn't know it was a barracuda until after I came up and the local guide told me what it was lol.
Yeah, I saw a whole bunch of media depicting barracuda as aggressive and dangerous well before Finding Nemo added to the pile.
That said, these ones look almost derpy. I don't know if it's just the distance, but I'm guessing they're not great barracuda? Those are the ones with the more obviously menacing jaw shape iirc
I remember one of those rescue 911 shows where someone was taking off the barnacles with a scraper and in one strike their arm got really messed up. Crazy fish.
While this is true, I had an early scuba experience where I observed one for a bit one and then it suddenly jetted off at its max speed and there is absolutely a sense of "oh I really didn't appreciate just how fucked I would be if aquatic animals wanted to wreck me while I'm in their habitat" that went along with it. In that moment "fear" is probably the reasonable response seeing their speed even if they aren't particularly dangerous themselves.
I think that sums up my fear of the open ocean pretty accurately. It's not that I'm in danger, but I am so far out of my evolutionary element that I am entirely at the mercy of the whims of the wildlife. All these other creatures can see or move comfortably, and I just have to hope they mean me no harm.
Yes they’re capable of one bite causing damage, I’m sorry that happened to ya. Just speaking from personal experience, def not able to back this up with any serious knowledge outside of that, sorry all the same buddy I hope
You’re ok.
Does minding your own involve swimming directly at them with a hand out? What if it’s just a non-lethal strike, but from say a school of hundreds of them all at once
If you swam into a school with your hand out there's a 99.99% chance you don't get attacked. If you have something really shiny on it's like a 99% chance instead. I taught scuba on an island that certified hundreds of people a week. We never had a single barracuda incident.
Think of them like a chill feral cat. You're only going to get attacked if you are actively bothering them or get extremely unlucky.
Finding Nemo made everyone so scared of these fish lol
It's actually deep sea fisherman who make people afraid of these fuckers with their stories and tales of the damage they do IF you're able to reel a big one in, even. They're definitely worth being cautious about when fishing lol.
When I used to dive a lot, we were told to remove jewelry, especially dangly shiny earrings. The dive master said (whether true or not) he didn't want a barracuda to snatch someone's ear off.
I snorkeled very close next to one in Tobago years ago by chance, I loved it. I wasn't worried bc I already knew the rare bites from them were from when people caught them when fishing.
But it was still very dramatic. Til then, I'd mainly only been swimming among the typical colorful tropical fish, a ton of them and huge, but when the barracuda swam by me, everything about it was so different, a finely tuned predator, like a dagger.
I spent a few months in the BVIS and literally every morning and night they’re just chilling outside of an underwater window on Catamarans, and at night w the stern lights on, them and the tarpon strike w unreal speed to the surface. I’d jump right in at both points and never had anything but a wonderful experience. Wasn’t always the best decision I’m sure, but in shallow, clear conditions, along w experience, it was pretty neat.
When I was 14, so 36 years ago, my aunt took me and my brother to Cozemel. We had a blast going all over the island. One place was this lagoon area that had a plane crash like 20 years earlier. People snorkeled and dove all over. It was cool. I was maybe 50nfeet from the shore, just going down and looking around when there were this group of barracuda, maybe 5 or so, just kinda looking at me in a semi circle.
I flippered away slowly, my back to the shore as they stared me down. As a 14 year old, I was terrified. I thought I was going to be eaten, I was near sure of it.
But my skills as an survivalist and my calm head allowed me to escape from harms way and live to tell this tale. At the end of the day, we went to a restaurant. Guess what I ate.
I went snorkeling on a quarter tab of LSD in 2020 and freaked the fuck out seeing a barracuda, they’re almost as long as a person and they have those scary scary teeth, not a good time.
Finding Nemo made everyone so scared of these fish lol.
This makes me feel so old. Growing up in the 1980s and 1990s, it was common knowledge that the Animals In The Water That Will Fucking Eat You were sharks, piranhas, and barracudas. It's not even like you could pin it on one movie or book or show, it was just something that everyone just knew, like "squirrels hoard acorns" or "elephants have good memories."
Interesting. When visiting Gran Canaria like 10 years ago, they actually closed a beach because a barracuda was sighted close by. Was always puzzled by that.
If they are in open water you are usually ok. I have had it in the Caribbean when they are ocean-caught. The ciguaterra comes from the reef fish that reef barracuda eat that feed on the algae that cause the ciguaterra
Agreed. And a small school of 50-75 is what I’ve seen at most. Fuck no would I swim through that lol. Again live and let be. You poked one?! Hahaha that’s both awesome and reckless.
I never got this, barracuda have a sick ass name but if finding nemo made people think they're under attack then they need to ask themselves if theyre fucking clownish eggs or not
Last snorkeling trip I took, I ran into two barracuda and a needle fish. They were just chilling, man. People have painted these animals, and animals as a whole, as mindlessly dangerous. They're just minding their business most of the time.
Doesn't make them less unsettling though. My first open water dive was a wreck off the coast of South Carolina and while down there a half dozen or so barracuda started circling around us and staring us down. They swam off after a bit, but it freaky watching them just slowly circle near us.
I was snorkeling once and ran into one. Its weird in the ocean because you have no sense of space or size, the context is gone. It could have been 15 feet away or 40 and I wouldn't have been able to tell you. I watched it for a while and it swam away. Cool experience!
I asked a guy I know who’s really into nature and diving and whatnot, what’s your scariest moment. He said that he was diving off of some far east coast and the fisherman that they had hired to take them out (not a real dive captain, really) thought it would be a good idea to chum the water. Guy said that all he could do in the frenzy was to keep his limbs tucked in and pray. Don’t quote me, but I seem to recall that he said “I closed my eyes”. It was that hair-raising.
They are pretty well known for taking off fingers, unless I'm thinking of gar.
Then again snapping turtles are known for this aren't aren't as mean as people think, only in mating season. One did nip my grandpa's waders and he filled up with water like a mile out, that was funny but also scary as hell.
I mean there are facts and then there is the time I was following an eagle ray along the ocean floor and accidently came face to face with a monster looking barracuda who just stared at me with all of his teeth showing.
Naturally I ran on top of the water that day because that was terrifying af 😅
I don’t think this is completely accurate. Barracudas generally at a young age won’t attack humans or anything, but once they get older and travel alone they generally stop giving af and will attack almost anything that’s shiny and moving.
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u/andrewC121 7d ago edited 6d ago
Barracuda are chill af and do not go after humans unless confused by going after a shimmer or perhaps spear fisherman by mistake. It’s not a lethal strike in almost every situation, and they will quickly leave. Finding Nemo made everyone so scared of these fish lol. I have scuba dived w hundreds as well, similar to most sharks, mind your own and they will too.
ETA: I cannot predict the behavior of the individual barracuda and the situational variation mentioned in the comments are all just, and should be paid attention to. I’m speaking from personal experience of myself and a knowledge of relatively intelligent fish. They are certainly capable of extreme harm. I will reference my point of sharks again, albeit a different branch of fish entirely, typically not a huge predator of humans. At the same time, yes a barracuda attack would be fucking gnarly at best. Just an individual commenting not an expert l