A FISHERMAN landed a record-breaking monster catch when he reeled in a 500-pound tuna.

Sea charter skipper Andrew Alsop, 48, wrestled with the fish for more than two hours before pulling it aboard with the help of five crew members.

The massive 36-stone bluefin tuna weighs three times as much as the captain, Mr Alsop, and is believed to be the largest ever caught in Wales.

In a similar battle of the jaws, the giant fish dragged his boat for more than two and a half miles after hooking it.

Mr Alsop eventually landed the massive 7ft 7in long catch 45 miles off the west coast of Wales in the Celtic Deep area of the Irish Sea.

Mr. Alsop, skipper of the White Water vessel, was cheered on by his crew and charter passengers as he wrestled with the 504-pound tuna.

After returning to his base in Neyland, Pembrokeshire, he said: “It’s the fish of a lifetime.

“We’ve had Welsh shark fishing records from the boat, but actually this was the first time in 20 years that I was the captain and the angler.”

When it was suspected that a huge tuna might be at the end of a line, Mr Alsop handed over the boat’s controls to angler Gavin Davies and took up the rod for the battle of his life.

Mr Alsop said: “I really didn’t think we had a chance in a million years of keeping him in tackle.

“At one point I thought ‘I can’t do this’ – the fish was circling and fighting.

“But I had to land it, or it would have just been another fisherman’s tale.

“I knew it would be big, but when it finally showed up, it was even bigger than I thought.

“It took six of us to get him on board. We made sure we had plenty of photos and then we put it back in the water; he was pretty tired, but hopefully he’d be okay.

“To be honest, it was an absolutely crazy day, and afterward I was in pain all over.”

Mr Davies said: “I had gone shark fishing with the boys but we never expected this.

“I had never seen anything like it: it was a megafish and megarare. It was an absolutely brilliant day.”

Bluefin tuna were once common in British waters, but declined after World War II when mackerel and herring stocks were decimated by overfishing.

However, returning populations of the smaller fish and warmer waters have seen tuna slowly return.