Avid big-fish angler Simon Davidson has etched his name into the history books after catching a new British record porbeagle shark estimated at 550lb.
Kettering-based Simon was fishing out of Ilfracombe in North Devon with skipper Dan Hawkins and Reel Deal Charters when he took the huge predator, which beats the old best of 507lb, taken off Scotland in 1993.
Closely related to Great Whites, porbeagles are becoming an increasingly realistic target for UK anglers, and Simon and six other of his friends aboard the boat had already caught a number between 100lb and 400lb before the biggest of the bunch put the icing on an extraordinary day afloat.
“We had a double hook-up, but mine seemed small and wasn’t putting up much of a fight, so I gave it some stick and got it back to the boat,” Simon told us.
“But when skipper Dan grabbed the trace, he just looked at me – because this fish was huge! She suddenly screamed off and just kept going. Thirty minutes later I was in the hurt locker, but finally she surfaced.”
“This fish was beyond my wildest dreams, but all credit has to go to the skipper. Dan went above and beyond for us, and got not just me a PB, but my six good friends too!” he added.
