UNDATED (CNN) -- It was a fish fight that made the fish look like a man-eater, but it turns out experts think the man was a fish-beater.
The fish were biting all right, biting this guy's arm! Though this looks like a "fish eats man" story, experts say it's really a tale of "man molests fish."
Dr. Aaron Adams is an official of a tarpon conservation organization. The tarpon is so legendary Michelangelo painted one chasing Jonah on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. But this was no chapel.
It's believed to be Robbie's Pier in the Florida Keys, famous as a place to hand feed the tarpons.
But if this video is from Robbies, management wants nothing to do with it. An angry employee told us "he is truly molesting that animal."
He stuck his arm, his fist into the fish's gills which I'm sure caused permanent damage and killed the fish. There's no way that fish survived.
The tarpon has teeth that, rather than being razor sharp, are more like sandpaper.
Some compare this to "noodling" also known on "animal planet" as "Hillbilly Handfishin". People use their hands to catch catfish by the mouth sometimes giant catfish.
But catfish are OK to catch and eat. Tarpon are protected, recreational fish that are fish you catch and release unless you have a special permit.
Though the video is now going viral, it was first posted over a year and a half ago.
The tarpon got away and we were unable to catch the fisherman for comment. But online, folks were rooting for the fish. Give that tarpon a hand!