A WEYMOUTH fisherman who landed a monster catch decided to spare his conquest from the dinner plate.

Martin Foley got the shock of his life while fishing around five miles east of Portland as he pulled up his nets to find a three-foot long crawfish weighing in at 12 pounds.

Experts from Weymouth Sea Life Park said that the crawfish is though to be around 50 years old and is a rare find for the area.

Mr Foley said: “I just caught it in my net when I was out fishing.

“I hadn’t seen one for a long time so I thought it was a good idea to contact the Sea Life centre and see if they wanted it.”

Mr Foley said he could quite easily have sold the specimen or eaten it himself, but he wanted to see it go on display where others could see it.

He said: “They are quite highly priced and quite an expensive commodity. They are one of the nicest tasting shellfish you can get but there are not that many about.

“But they aren’t very common and it didn’t seem fair to sell him for the table.”

Mr Foley, 55, said he used to see crawfish around Portland Bill but he hadn’t seen one east of Portland in ten years of fishing in the area.

Staff at the centre have christened the monster Crawford and he will now go on display in the attraction’s Bay of Rays tank.

Sea Life Park marine expert Anna Russell said: “Crawfish really prefer cold water and hence are most common around the Scottish coast. That’s why we gave him a Scottish name.

“His appearance was especially surprising given global warming is meant to be making our waters warmer.

“In recent years we have had wanderers from further south caught here like marbled electric rays, sunfish and sea turtles.

“But it may be due to the cold winter we have had they have migrated south.”

Miss Russell added that the discovery of Crawford suggests there could be more crawfish lurking in our waters as he was unlikely to have headed south alone.

She said: “They undoubtedly move in large groups for protection from predators.”