A dad and daughter's fishing trip unearthed a gigantic octopus that washed up on a UK beach. Ziggy Austin and daughter Lauren were astounded to spot the monster after initially mistaking the creature for a wrecked fishing net.
The pair were on a family trip to fish at Hope's Nose along the Torquay coast in Devon when the sea beast appeared before them much to their shock, reports the Mirror.
Ziggy admits he couldn't help but 'snag' the octopus but needed help from Lauren to grab one of its tentacles to get a closer look at the unusual discovery. He reckons it is one of the biggest he has ever seen.
He told DevonLive: "It was very unusual. I was stood on the edge of Hope's Nose looking down over the side and I could see something that looked like a kind of wrecked fishing net. And I thought 'That's weird what is that?'
"Then a big wave came in and moved it and it rolled over and I saw these tentacles. And I was like 'Oh my fricking god! It's an octopus'.
"So I got down on the side of the rocks, de-rigged my rod and used the end of my rods to reach it to kind of snag it and dragged it up.
"Then Lauren managed to get hold of one of its tentacles and dragged it up onto the rocks. It was something very unusual."
Ziggy leads coastal adventures as the owner of Rock Solid Coasteering and has experience as a scuba diver. He reckons the huge creature, which was sadly dead by the time it was discovered, was nearly two metres long.
National Geographic suggests the type of octopus they found can generally be about 12-36 inches big (30-91cm).
Ziggy added: "This thing is much bigger than a metre, I think it's almost two metres, it's absolutely huge. I haven't measured it yet which is why I want to take it home and measure it officially because it might be the biggest one ever seen.
"Normally you see them and they're like the size of your fist, a couple of feet across, if that.
"It was dead but it was still kind of twitching, so it was really fresh. The seal must have bitten its head off. The brain would have been huge."
Ziggy doesn't want the octopus to go to waste, and says his previous experience as a Come Dine With Me winner will allow him to cook up something special.
He said: "I won the Torquay edition of Come Dine With Me a few years back so I'll cook something special with this beautiful specimen.
"I would never kill such an amazing creature, but I don't want it to go to waste. All my friends are already messaging for a piece.
"You get a lot of guys down there fishing [No Hope's Head] and they were coming up to me saying 'What the hell', gathering around, taking photographs, giving me advice on how to cook it.
"There were lots of Thai and Chinese people there and they all had a different recipe for me."
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