During a recent swim I was somewhat startled by the sudden appearance of these two large fish. I was close to shore when they shot past. At first I thought they were sharks, but quickly realized that wasn’t the case. They were just very big fish.

Their size, and the shape of their tails, made me think of jacks, and indeed they are. Rainbow runners are deepwater fish. They often congregate around floating objects, preying on smaller fish that gather there, such as mackerel scad.

The larger of these two, in the top photo, was probably around three-and-a-half feet long. Those smaller, dark fish are around 9 inches long.