A MAN and his son were put through their paces after reeling in a ‘river monster’ on a fishing trip in Canada.

Winfrith vet Alan Sim went on a fishing trip to the Fraser River in British Columbia with his son Robbie at the end of August.

After years of fishing in Dorset at the River Frome and from Weymouth charter boats, the pair wanted to try and catch something really big, before Mr Sim, who is 61, becomes too old.

The goal was to catch a fish weighing above 100lbs, but little did they know they would catch a fish weighing more than 300lbs on their first day.

According to Mr Sim, they had been fishing on the river for around 90 minutes when a white sturgeon took a small strip of salmon.

After a 30-minute battle, the fish was beached two miles downstream, and weighed in at more than 320lbs, measuring eight and a half feet in length.

Mr Sim said: “We were hoping to catch a fish above 100lbs and we smashed that. We didn’t expect to get something that big. I’m now 61-years-old so I didn’t think I’ve got many years left to catch fish like that.

“My best catch prior to this trip was a conga eel weighing 70lbs, so this is a big step up from that.

“Robbie and I have had some fantastic fishing trips of the years. We travelled to Canada trying to catch some big fish. We have tried to catch big fish before but it hasn’t quite come off.”

As well as catching a humongous white sturgeon, the pair caught two 7ft long fish, weighing around 200lbs, as well as a couple of 5-6ft, hundred pound tiddlers.

Rob, who is aged 14, managed to catch a fish which was 7ft 4ft and weighed 200lbs.

Mr Sim added: “It was a magnificent trip, we drove to Washington state in the US via the Canadian border and did some fishing there as well, the whole coastline was beautiful.”