Would You Swim in This River?

I noticed this video doing its rounds today...



The description reads
"Occurred on June 10, 2017 / Debary, Florida, USA

"My husband was bailing water out of our boat after a huge storm. Every time he threw the water we saw splashes in the water. I happened to be recording on one of the tosses and we saw huge splashes of water everywhere. We both looked at each other and said 'I will never swim in there again!'"

I've been up and down the comments, and can't find a definitive answer as to what it is... The guesses are alligators, (invasive) carp and manatees... Does anyone know for a fact what it is? Because I'm not going near any body of water until I do...

a reply to: Gemwolf

a reply to: Gemwolf

Yeah I'm not even standing on that dock. No idea what that is. A friend of mine who was knee boarding in brackish water in Alabama down near the gulf said something grabbed him one time, and he's never swam in nothing he can't see through since.

Who knows. I used to live on a canal in St. Petersburg, FL, and me and some friends were drunk fishing off the dock, passed out and forgot about the reels locked into the reel holders on the dock, and something ripped the reel and the reel holder completely off the dock in the middle of the night.

Brackish water is bad. Lol.

I would go with the carp explanation. We have carp in the rivers around here and they jump around and go crazy in a way thats very similar. Although they will come out of the water all together. Ive had to throw them out of my boat before.

a reply to: Gemwolf

I'm not expert on St. Johns River, but I have fished it many years ago. There were massive manatees as big as the boat we were in. That was the first time I'd ever seen one before. As a matter of fact, I didn't even know what a manatee was until I did see one. They were everywhere. I know they could easily make that size of splash, but I'm not sure if they do that type of thing or not. We did see a few gators, but nothing the size of the manatees we saw. I'm guessing they are manatees.

a reply to: Gemwolf
Carp don't get big enough in this state, too many predators. My honest assessment having lived here awhile, a small group of Tarpon that were idling nearby were startled by the sudden movement near them from the water being dumped and went ape-# to hightail it out of there.

Gators or reptile only behave like that during fights or attacking prey, and we for sure would have seen some of them. Manatee are way to sluggish to make that kind of splash, and again we likely would have seen their humps.

Im going with a small group of tarpon, which can easily hit man size lengths.

a reply to: Gemwolf
I would if they were manatees.

Damn nature, you crazy!

It looks like a manatee mating ball.

Looks like a bunch of large gas bubbles being released... The fact that the video only shows it happening once seems suspect...

The splash to the front right looks like it twists almost like a snake. I'm pretty sure snakes are loners unless matting season. I'll go with startled fish. Cool find.

At about 17sec, right before they are startled, you can see them surface feeding.

My money is on a school of carp, or drum.

Creepy video though.

originally posted by: underwerks
a reply to: Gemwolf

Yeah I'm not even standing on that dock. No idea what that is. A friend of mine who was knee boarding in brackish water in Alabama down near the gulf said something grabbed him one time, and he's never swam in nothing he can't see through since.

Who knows. I used to live on a canal in St. Petersburg, FL, and me and some friends were drunk fishing off the dock, passed out and forgot about the reels locked into the reel holders on the dock, and something ripped the reel and the reel holder completely off the dock in the middle of the night.

Brackish water is bad. Lol.

i was raised in st pete.
what part for you?
haines road and 50th ave for me
north of course

i used to swim with the manatee all the time in cyrstal river. my uncle lived on a little canal near plantation golf course and we found a cool spot

would love to talk to you about st pete

how long ago?

From the expression on the guy's face, they knew what it was and knew they were there.

I'm going with something that is easy enough to see or tell it's there somehow if you know what you're looking for like a manatee or maybe a large fish of some kind like a tarpon.

a reply to: Gemwolf

No. I swam once in the 60's in Florida's Loxahatchee river...and saw alligators on shore with a sign DO NOT FEED ALLIGATORS...got back into canoe A.S.A.P.

Earlier, I got "frisky" with a couple young ladies up in the shoreline bushes...never thinking about snakes either.
Dumbass....

Well, it was the 60's.....

Not Manatee, carp, tarpon or gaters.

I would go with Snake heads.

a reply to: TinySickTears
Sounds like Pinellas Park! Only trouble ever comes from there.

Plantation golf course, do you mean the plantation subdivision in Tampa, or is there one in St Pete too???

a reply to: Nickn3
What are you kidding me?! Snakeheads barely get 3 feet, Tarpon grow up to 8 feet+! Don't you tell us that man size fish are out of the question and then claim it could be little bitty snakeheads!

originally posted by: TinySickTears

originally posted by: underwerks
a reply to: Gemwolf

Yeah I'm not even standing on that dock. No idea what that is. A friend of mine who was knee boarding in brackish water in Alabama down near the gulf said something grabbed him one time, and he's never swam in nothing he can't see through since.

Who knows. I used to live on a canal in St. Petersburg, FL, and me and some friends were drunk fishing off the dock, passed out and forgot about the reels locked into the reel holders on the dock, and something ripped the reel and the reel holder completely off the dock in the middle of the night.

Brackish water is bad. Lol.

i was raised in st pete.
what part for you?
haines road and 50th ave for me
north of course

i used to swim with the manatee all the time in cyrstal river. my uncle lived on a little canal near plantation golf course and we found a cool spot

would love to talk to you about st pete

how long ago?

I lived on 49th ave NE. That's crazy close, if I remember right. It was back around 2002-2005.

I only was there for around 3 years before I moved to Nashville to go to audio engineering school. I worked on MacDill AFB over in Tampa at the time, mowing the runways lol.

ETA: I wasn't raised there, I just moved there when I first got out of high school because my step dad worked at SoCom over on MacDill. And I was like Florida, why not.

originally posted by: Nickn3
Not Manatee, carp, tarpon or gaters.

I would go with Snake heads.

looks like an all fresh water area on the map, so my drum idea is out, but check the vid, you can see them calmly surface feeding, or sucking in air. So prob not a snakhead, they are psychos when they feed. I am back to carp again.

originally posted by: mysterioustranger
a reply to: Gemwolf

No. I swam once in the 60's in Florida's Loxahatchee river...and saw alligators on shore with a sign DO NOT FEED ALLIGATORS...got back into canoe A.S.A.P.

Earlier, I got "frisky" with a couple young ladies up in the shoreline bushes...never thinking about snakes either.
Dumbass....

Well, it was the 60's.....

Yeah , the gators down here are no joke, but you are right about the snakes, I've been struck at 3 times so far hiking here.

I was jetskiing right before sunset on lake Tarpon and jammed the impeller with weeds and had to jump in to unclog it.
Two where circling us, and I had to go underwater, my gf would slap the side of the ski they were close to, and I popped up the other side. We also went all the way up the Hillsborough river, where a gator with about a 2 ft wide head popped up behind us at Idle, right in the blind spot, maybe 3 feet from the ski and gaining. I dropped a 350 HP water fall on that one.
My gf would have been dinner like the lady snatched off the canoe in lettuce lake a while back.

a reply to: worldstarcountry

It wasn't Pinellas park. Pinellas county yes.
Plantation golf course was a couple hours north in Crystal river