GIANT OF THE OCEAN IS CAUGHT OFF WESTCOUNTRY
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Shark fishing history has been made in the Westcountry with a record-breaking catch off the Cornish coastline.
A giant 484lb, 7ft 9in long, porbeagle shark, cousin to the fearsome great white shark, was caught just off the coast near Boscastle, north Cornwall, on Monday.
Keen angler Christopher Bett, of Taunton, chartered a boat from Boscastle to go in search of porbeagles, but never imagined he would catch such a huge specimen."I go sharking quite often, I've been doing it for seven years now, but I've only ever caught blue sharks in Cornwall."I recently went on a trip to South Africa where I caught great whites that were 500-1100lb and I wanted to get out there and catch bigger sharks in Cornwall." Mr Bett said.
The largest porbeagle shark ever caught in Great Britain weighed 507lb and was caught off the Scottish coast in 1993.According to the Shark Angling Club of Great Britain, based in Looe, Monday's catch could be the largest ever hooked in Cornwall.Mr Bett, 36, along with friend and Newquay hotelier, Steven Condick, caught the shark after an hour fishing in waters off Boscastle."We'd spent an hour in that spot and we were just about to move on, but we hung on for a while and then got lucky," Mr Bett added.
Porbeagle sharks are quite rare in most parts of the world, but they can be found in Atlantic waters.A number have been caught in Cornwall in recent years. But Mr Bett's catch is undoubtedly of record-breaking size and larger than most inhabiting the sea off north Cornwall.Shark fishing is popular in the Westcountry and most often sharks are caught, tagged and then thrown back into the sea.But on this occasion, the porbeagle had swallowed the eight inch steel hook too deeply and would have died anyway if it had been returned to the water.Instead, the fisherman decided to bring it in, and wrestled with the gigantic shark for over two hours before finally hauling it on board their boat.
Mr Condick, who owns the Ravensbury Hotel in Newquay and organises fishing trips for guests, said: "Chris struggled with the shark for two hours and five minutes and went nine times round the boat before he caught it."When we got it on the boat we realised how big it was. It was absolutely huge - the size of a cow - and we knew we'd caught something special."Mr Bett said: "At the front of the boat there is only a narrow gap between the cabin and the railing and every time I went round the boat with the shark I had to grip the railing with one hand and try and keep hold of the rod with the other."
A high-tech international reel and a whole coley fish with a mackerel flapper were used as bait to catch the massive shark.The friends took the shark to Looe Fish Market to auction it off. But it took a Land Rover and ropes to grapple with the heavy load and get it up a ten foot wall from the boat on to the back of a transit van to take it there."We knew we needed to take it to Looe to have it weighed. But in-between catching it and weighing it it had lost a lot of blood and water, so it would have originally weighed much more than 484lb," Mr Bett said.
The shark went on sale yesterday morning at Looe Fish Market, but unfortunately was not sold. It was then transported by a fish suppliers to France to be sold at a market in Boulogne.
Mr Bett, who owns a furniture removal company, said: "I'll be back down to Cornwall again soon to see what else I can catch, but I'll let my arms calm down a bit first, it was hard work landing that shark."
LUCY GRIFFITHS