In Ernest Hemingway's The Old Man And The Sea a fisherman catches a giant marlin but is only able to drag its head and bones to shore as sombre proof of his great deed.
But two mates from Esperance in WA's Great Southern have gone one better and written their own legend, hauling an absolutely enormous swordfish from the depths of the ocean and bringing it back to land whole.
![The enormous swordfish weighed in at 175.5 kilos - an unofficial record for WA.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618175033im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/s/n/0/g/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwsn0j.png/1497592301887.jpg)
Weighing in at 175.5 kilograms and measuring 3.3 metres in length, the colossal predator was hauled in by Jethro Bonnitcha and Mitch Johnson aboard their six metre runabout off Bremer Bay.
"Our plan was to find a south coast swordfish and the water out there is extremely deep, that's where they get the killer whales," Mr Johnson told 6PR's Simon Beaumont.
"We had a 24-hour gap of good weather so we thought we'd head out there... and we were lucky enough to hook up in the afternoon."
And so began a four hour fight to pull the massive swordfish out of the water, a struggle that saw the fishermen and their vessel dragged at least eighteen kilometres across the sea as the great fish struggled to escape.
"Because a fish like that, once they go deep it's a bit of a struggle to get them back up, so you sort of end up chasing the fish and trying to drag it a bit with the boat, something heavy like that you can't do much," Mr Johnson said.
'We definitely didn't expect it to be that big, any old sword would have done. We were lucky in that within the first half an hour it did a massive leap out of the water probably a hundred yards from the boat, and that's when we knew what it was."
![Joshua Butterworth and Jethro Bonnichta with the huge hammerhead.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618175033im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/m/7/4/r/d/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gwsn0j.png/1497592301887.jpg)
Both Mr Bonnitcha and Mr Johnson are keen recreational anglers well known in WA's fishing community for catching big marine life like hammerhead sharks.
But the swordfish was a first for both of them, and Mr Johnson said he was awestruck by the animal's strength.
![The boys with their catch.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170618175033im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/w/s/n/0/f/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gwsn0j.png/1497592301887.jpg)
"They're pretty ridiculous, that tail alone would be four coke cans high, the strength in that tail and then the bill alone, you'd break an arm if that thing hit you.
"We got it to the boat about three or four times and every time we would get within a hundred metres it would dive back down five hundred metres."
But even though the fish could break the WA record of 96kg, it will stay unofficial because the pair did not catch the swordfish with the right conditions for verifying it.
"The way the rules are set with line classes and what not is that you have to be signed up essentially and then when you do that you can catch the fish and get it measured, but we don't go in for that," Mr Johnson said.
"It essentially just stays unofficial and that's it."
Happy just to have caught the fish and told the tale, the pair are now sharing their spoils, cutting up huge swordfish steaks for friends and family.
"Yeah that's the plan, feed as many as possible. We gave lots to the locals, guys out there have been really helpful - I don't know how we got it in the boat but they helped us get it out of the boat!"