“IT was like something out of Jaws” – those are the words of an angler from Hook describing how he reeled in what is believed to be the largest shark ever caught in British waters.

Graeme Pullen and his friend Wayne Comben, from Havant, were fishing off the Cornish coast when a 10ft-long Porbeagle – a member of the man-eating Great White family – burst through the surface and went into a feeding frenzy on their special bait.

The shark, believed to weigh around 550lb, dragged the men and their 17ft boat for a mile and then spent 90 minutes battling for freedom.

The pair then released the shark, but not before capturing a series of stunning images and earning themselves national publicity for their feat.

Recalling what happened, Mr Pullen, 60, said: “We had a break in the weather so decided to go on a trip, but we were having what I would call a bad hair day as fishing goes.

“I started dumping all my boxes of fish bait into the sea, thinking we would not bother going out for a second day.

“All the seagulls came round to feed when all of a sudden they all took off and this shark just tore the surface apart. I have never seen a shark that has been so excited or dangerous.

“We then reeled in the lines, but it grabbed one of our tope lines and the battle began. We thought it was big, at least 300lbs, but when we saw the full size of it, it was just gargantuan – like something from Jaws.”

Mr Pullen’s boat, the Hi Sea Drifter, was too small for them to lift the shark aboard but they were able to measure its length at 10ft and width of 2ft. It was then legally tagged for Mr Pullen’s fishing website, totallyawesomefishing.com.

The pair also captured images and video footage using an underwater camera.

The record for the biggest shark caught off British waters stood at 507lbs for a beast snared off the north Scottish coast in 1993.

But for Mr Pullen’s porbeagle to be confirmed as the biggest catch, he would have to have killed and weighed it ashore. He said: “It was a nice record but we opted to let it go.”

Porbeagles are often seen around the Cornish coast, but are not considered dangerous to humans.

Mr Pullen, a retired businessman, who has written 16 fishing books, runs the totallyawesomefishing.com website to catalogue his adventures and to get more youngsters interested in the sport.