About 60 miles south of Orange Beach, a fishing trip for tuna caught the unexpected instead. "I was like a five year old with the best present in the world on Christmas day when I saw the whales, it was like wow!"
Veteran charter boat captain Eddie Hall thought he'd seen just about everything. "Lot's of cool stuff everything from submarines to ships to every kind of shark you can think of, never a killer whale. Never ever thought about seeing a killer whale in my lifetime in the Gulf."
Hall says for a while they forgot they had a video camera on board. His first phone call after returning home was to his good friend, outdoors man Gary Finch. "For a sighting like this to happen for thirty minutes to an hour and get it on videotape is pretty extraordinary."
It has happened before. Biologist Keith Mullin says there have been 17 sightings of Orca's in the Gulf, but not like this. "Ten to 15 in a pod that's the most we've ever seen or really even gotten reports of."
Just to give you an idea how big some of these whales were, the back of the charter boat Shady Lady is 18 feet across. Some of the whales were that long and some, even longer.
A killer whale encounter in the Gulf of Mexico, it's something boat owner Shawn Clemons won't soon forget. "For them to come up, no hesitation. Basically we could have jumped off the boat onto their backs, it was breathtaking."
It's one fish tale they'll be talking about for years to come.
According to the National Marine Fishery Service there are at least 20 species of whales and dolphins in the Gulf of Mexico.
Before this sighting the population of killer whales in the Gulf was thought to be around 150.
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