Fisherman claims monster lobster is biggest caught in British waters for 80 years... even though he didn't bother weighing it

By Daily Mail Reporter  15th December 2009

This photo of probably the biggest lobster netted in British waters for 80 years is the only proof of the catch.

Simon Sharp threw the barnacled female measuring more than 1m long back into the sea after snapping it on his mobile phone.  It was slow and sluggish and he did not want to risk its life by taking it to shore to be weighed and verified.

Experts say its huge claws - said to measure 35cm long and 15cm wide - could take off a human hand.

Shell-shocked! Lizzy Sharp holds the giant lobster she and her husband Simon caught off the coast of Devon

The monster crustacean was more than 3ft long and had claws measuring 14in long and 8in wide

The Sharps were fishing when they noticed the lobster, believed to be more than 100 years old, caught up in their net off the coast of Dartmouth in Devon.

But the photographic evidence did little to support Mr Sharp's case. Three years ago a 16 year old teenager fishing off a pier in Deal Kent, hauled out a monster which looks much bigger than Mr Sharp's catch.

Simon 'V-notched' the creature's tail so it would be illegal for other fisherman to take it again.

A spokeswoman from the Marine Conservation Society said: 'This is a massive lobster and one of this size is likely to be well over a century old.

'It has probably just found a really good sheltered spot in the estuary and it's definitely the biggest one we've heard of in this country, if not further afield.

'It's really good that they put it back in, because the older lobsters are really important to the breeding stock, as they actually put more energy into reproduction as they get older, and it's good to keep them going as lobsters are often over-fished.' 

The biggest lobster ever recorded weighed in at 44 pounds and was 1.06 metres long and was caught off the coast of Canada in 1977.

Europe's biggest ever lobster, caught off Fowey in Cornwall in 1931, weighed 20lb and measured just over four feet.

In 2001, a huge lobster was spared the pot after being caught off Cornwall. It measured three feet.