There are plenty of fish in the sea, as the saying goes - but everyone's got their eye on the biggest one! John Harvey sure did when he caught the 'world's biggest carp' in Thailand recently.
The 42-year-old from Devon, England, spent a staggering 80 minutes reeling in a Siamese Carp that weighed 232lbs last month.
The 16-and-a-half stone, or 105kg, fish reportedly beats the previous world record set for a Siamese Carp by a whopping 10lbs.
John, who has lived in Thailand for 14 years, couldn't believe his eyes when he saw the massive fish come out of the water while fishing at Palm Tree Lagoon in Chedi Hak.
Speaking to Devon Live, he described the process as "nerve-wracking" but "amazing".
"It was a reasonably quiet day for fishing," he said. "Then, at around 4.30pm the cart rod screened off so I ran over to the rod, and straight away felt it was a really big fish. I've done fishing for a while now and you can tell if it's big or not from the bait."
The 42-year-old, who lives in Pattaya, a city on Thailand’s eastern Gulf coast, continued: "It was very slow, hard, heavy fish. I had to hang on to it for one hour 20 minutes which was pretty nerve-racking. It might seem a while but sometimes it can be four or five hours stood there holding the rod.
"It was amazing. I've never caught a carp that weighed over 100lbs before. It was absolutely enormous, the pictures do not do it justice at all."
His catch has impressed his friends on social media, with Andy Cottrill writing "Unreal!" and Jason Cole commenting that he is in the "Hall of Fame!"
But rather than throwing himself into the competitive angling game, John has insisted that he is just going to enjoy the moment.
"I just want to go out there and enjoy it. People travel the world trying to catch the biggest fish but that takes the fun out of it," he said.
