A KEEN fisherman caught a 200lb shark off Weymouth and Portland in a 'once in a lifetime' experience.

Max Bryden was fishing off the side of a chartered fishing boat roughly seven miles out when he came face to face with a thresher shark, believed to be around eight and a half feet long and weighing between 150 and 200lbs.

Max, 31, got the hook of his fishing rod caught in the shark's mouth, and clung onto the rod for dear life as the shark leapt out of the water trying to free itself.

After an hour long battle, Max, who has been fishing since he was 15, finally managed to get the shark to come alongside the boat where he removed the hook from its mouth and took some photographs before the shark swam off freely into the ocean.

He said: "It was unbelievable - initially my line was slack as I had got it caught around the line one of the other guys onboard was using but then it suddenly shot off when the shark got hooked.

"It started swimming away and used up nearly all of the reel I had on the rod but luckily it didn't go so far that it pulled the rod from my hands, even when it jumped out the water. After about 20 minutes, I managed to get it close to the boat so we could see how big it was which was so exciting.

Dorset Echo: Max Bryden caught a thresher shark off the Weymouth coast Pictures: Max BrydenMax Bryden caught a thresher shark off the Weymouth coast Pictures: Max Bryden

"It then dived down beneath the boat so I had to try and get it back up. It did that three times which was exhausting and took about an hour.

"Eventually it came alongside the boat as it was tired so I could take out my hook and I cleaned some debris off it as well. Then it swam away."

Max, from Poole, founder of online tackle business Faction Direct, goes fishing off Weymouth regularly, but has never caught anything the size of the thresher shark.

He said: "I once caught a conga eel which was about 55lbs, but the shark was at least three times the size of that. It was a true monster.

"The skipper I was out with on the Snapper Charters boat has been fishing in Weymouth Bay for 15 years and he said he'd never seen a thresher shark before so this was a once in a lifetime experience. I feel so lucky."