A Saltcoats angler’s two-year pursuit of the world’s largest skate fish paid off recently when he finally reeled the beast in off the Northern Irish coast.

Hamish Currie, 59, caught the 300lb monster – which he has since nicknamed ‘Big Bertha’ – near Portrush.

The charter skipper had been tracking the 8ft 3in giant for two years when he hauled it onboard his boat, Predator.

Hamish then had the giant fish tagged for conservation and released back into the sea within four minutes.

He told the Herald: “It was amazing. I have been angling for a long time, over 30 years. I’ve been chasing her the last two years.

“She was the biggest caught in the world. We’ll call her Big Bertha for the Herald!”

Hamish, who lives in Portstewart but is Saltcoats born and bred, has fishing in his blood. His father was the 1972 European Skate Champion in Lerwick after catching a skate fish weighing in at 204lbs.

Hamish explained how he snared Big Bertha: “I caught a bull huss – that’s a young shark – and I put it on as live bait. It weighed 6lbs, was a metre long.

“It took me an hour and five minutes. I had her up to the surface three times, but she kept going back down.

“Once you’ve caught it, you’ve got 10 minutes [to re-release] and in under four minutes she was tagged with a tag. I wouldn’t kill a fish that big.

“I was absolutely shattered. If I was to get a big pole with a rope and get a person to swing on it, that’s what it would be like – that’s how heavy it was.”