A Welsh fisherman spent more than two hours reeling in a giant 7ft 7in tuna fish which weighs a record-breaking 500lb.
Sea charter skipper Andrew Alsop, 48, fought with the fish before pulling it aboard with the help of five crew members 45 miles off the West Wales coast in the Celtic Deep area of the Irish Sea.
The whopping 36st (504lb) blue fin tuna weighs three times as much as Mr Alsop and is believed to be the biggest fish ever caught in Wales.
In the epic battle the giant fish dragged his boat for more than two-and-a-half miles after it was hooked.
Skipper Andrew Alsop (pictured), 48, fought with this blue fin tuna for more than two hours before pulling it aboard with the help of five crew members 45 miles off the West Wales coast
Mr Alsop, skipper of the White Water craft, was cheered on by his crew and his charter passengers as he wrestled with the 7ft 7in tuna.
After returning to his base at Neyland, Pembrokeshire, he said: ‘It is the fish of a lifetime. We’ve had Welsh shark fishing records off the boat but this was actually the first time in 20 years that I was both the skipper and the angler.’
When the team realised a massive fish could be on the end of a line, Mr Alsop passed over the controls of the boat to fisherman Gavin Davies so that he could take the rod.
Mr Alsop said: ‘I really didn’t think we had any chance in a million years of holding it on the tackle.
‘At one stage I thought “I can’t do this” – the fish was pinwheeling and fighting. But I had to land it, or it would just have been another fisherman’s tale.
A true fisherman’s tale: Mr Alsop (pictured), skipper of the White Water craft, was cheered on by his crew and his charter passengers as he wrestled with the 7ft 7in tuna
‘I knew it would be big but when it eventually came up it was even more massive than I thought.
‘It took six of us to get it on board. We made sure we had plenty of photos then put him back in the water – he was pretty tired but hopefully he would be ok.
‘It was an absolutely mad day, to be honest, and I was aching all over afterwards.’
Mr Davies said: ‘I’d gone with the boys for a day out shark fishing but we never expected this.
‘I’ve never seen anything like it – it was a mega fish and mega rare. It was an absolutely brilliant day.’
Blue fin tuna were once common in British waters but dwindled after World War II when mackerel and herring stocks were decimated by over fishing.
Returning stocks of the smaller fish and warmer waters have seen tuna populations slowly recover.