A Perth angler says his body is "buggered" after pulling in a massive 363-kilogram black marlin off the coast of Exmouth on Wednesday.
Byron Milne was on a Set the Hook chartered fishing trip with friends about 10 kilometres off the North-West coast when he hooked the monster fish – which took three hours to reel in.
![The giant marlin...and the tiny lure used to catch it.](/web/20170107084351im_/http://www.watoday.com.au/content/dam/images/g/n/f/z/z/x/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gnfz3n.png/1457657926381.jpg)
The catch would have smashed the previous WA record for the biggest black marlin ever caught [296kg] but after two hours of fighting with the fish, Mr Milne needed help from his friends to keep him upright, which is against official game fishing rules.
The 25-year-old, who at 72 kilograms weighs just one fifth of the marlin, said wrestling with the fish was the most painful experience of his life.
"I've never felt pain like that - cramps in my fingers, cramps in my hamstrings, my back was buggered," Mr Milne said.
"The drag was locked full to the tightest setting it could go to on the heaviest gear you could possibly fish and I was standing fighting it with a harness and about two hours in my back gave way.
"I couldn't stand, I was going to go in, and I knew that as soon as someone helped me the record was smashed but I couldn't hack the pain."
Mr Milne said he used a 60-kilogram line and a Pulsator lure to catch the fish on a Shimano rod.
"The drag pressure was well over 30 kilograms," he said.
Set the Hook charter owner Murray Pattison said the marlin was still alive when it was dragged alongside the boat, but died soon after.
"We tried to revive the fish next to the boat when we first captured it," he said.
"Once we realised she was dead, we pulled her into the boat to be weighed."
According to the Western Australia Game Fishing Association, the largest black marlin caught in WA weighed 296.90 kilograms and was caught off Exmouth in December 2013 by Luke Groen.
The largest ever WA marlin catch was a 368.20 kilogram blue marlin, also caught off Exmouth, in February 2014 by Rowan Smith.