Watch Fla. Deputy's Amazing Rescue of Giant Fish Stuck on Beach

By Mark Price

Source The News Tribune (Tacoma, Wash.)

Mola mola are freakishly big fish that resemble “little more than a large head,” so it takes some courage to yank one by the tail.

Yet that’s exactly what one Florida deputy did, when he found one struggling in shallow water on a Volusia County beach.

It happened around 3 p.m. on Monday, Feb. 3, near the U.S. Coast Guard station at Ponce Inlet. Video posted Feb. 4 by the Volusia Sheriff’s Office shows the mola mola was trapped because it was unable to swim in reverse.

With the tide going out, and its head already above water, the fish was in danger of dying. So one determined deputy decided to intervene, despite the fish being about the size of a dining room table.

Body cam video shows Deputy Ric Urquhart first tried grabbing it by a fin and wiggling it back to open water.

When that failed, Urquhart decided to “work smarter” and roped it like a rodeo bull, spinning it around in the water, video shows.

That left it facing open water, so all the deputy had to do was push the fish into deeper water.

“He’s still good and alive,” Urquhart says in the video, as the mola mola swims away.

“What he’s doing in here, I have no idea. Normally, they like to hang out off shore. ... It’s like watching a Roomba.”

Urquhart is a former Volusia County Beach Safety officer who joined the sheriff’s office in 2023 when a change in state law required the sheriff’s office “to take over all law enforcement duties on beaches.”

Mola mola, also known as ocean sunfish, “are the world’s largest bony fish,” reaching up to 5,000 pounds, the National Park Service says.

“They are oddly shaped, commonly described to look like half a fish,” the NPS reports. “When swimming upright, these gentle giants are often mistaken for sharks because of the way their dorsal fin rises from the water.”

Volusia County is about a 50-mile drive northeast from Orlando.

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