If luck were money, then Ben Kenney would be filthy rich. In late June, the YouTuber from Massachusetts went fishing in the Atlantic and made an unbelievable catch. He landed a fishing rod with a giant striped bass still hooked up to it. Fortunately, Kenney has proof of the catch since he recorded a video and shared it on Instagram.
“This is one of the craziest things that has ever happened to me!” Kenney wrote in the video’s description. “I’m still in shock at how ridiculous and lucky this catch was.”
The episode began on or before June 27, when Kenney and some friends went fishing near Boston with Captain Vinny and Storm Buster Charters. At some point that morning, while they were targeting stripers, one of their trolling rods was yanked out of the rod holder. It disappeared into the depths of the Atlantic Ocean, and Vinny wrote it off as just another lost piece of fishing tackle.
A little while later, the group was still fishing when Kenney felt a tug on the end of his line and set the hook.
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The video starts here, with Kenney doing battle with what looks like a heavy fish. But after two minutes of reeling, they only see the tip of a fishing rod breaking the surface. It turns out to be the exact same spinning rod that fell into the drink earlier, and Kenney’s crankbait is hooked solidly on the uppermost guide.
“Did I just catch your fishing rod?!” Kenney asks the captain. “There’s no way!”
Everyone on the boat starts to laugh as Vinny lifts on the recovered rod. Then he feels weight on the other end of the line.
“I think the fish is on this one,” Vinny says, reeling in the slack and handing the rod back to Kenney. “Yeah, take this.”
The anglers can hardly contain their laughter. They cheer Kenney on as he battles the fish, working the doubled-over rod up and down.
“This is just way [more] bizarre than I wanted anything to be,” Capt. Vinny jokes. “This might be a boat that I lost a couple years ago.”
Moments later, Vinny slips the net underneath a giant striped bass. Then he hands it off to Kenney for a photo. It might not be the biggest catch of his life, but it will likely be remembered as the luckiest.