Fishing the gulf in grand isle question.

Here in grand isle for the weekend. Me and buddy took yaks out off the beach all of a sudden all down the coast huge schools of fish started taking off and flying out of the water. Getting hit by absolutely huge explosions. All day long. The bait fish were just going crazy. I've never see anything like it. It was as far down the coast as we could see all at once the separate schools were getting attacked. We lost tons of baits trying to catch whatever it was. I've never (aside from offshore) experienced strikes like that. The first one I could see a flash as it took my big black mirrorlure and it spooled me in about 8 seconds. It was about 2 feet long. We both lost several baits. Had three hooks straightened. Lost three spools of line between us. We obviously didn't have the necessary tackle but kept trying because it was such a rush. It was fun but frustrating. This was between 30 and 300 yards offshore, all day. It reminded me of how tuna hit schools of flying fish. What says the OB?