A GoPro camera that sunk to the bottom of the sea and kept on recording has been traced to its owner after it was incredibly hooked out by a teenage angler nearly a year later.

Holidaymaker Josh White, 17, lost the expensive camera last August when he dropped it while performing a back flip into the sea.

He repeatedly dived down to look for the £300 gadget but eventually gave up.

Then last week Maddie Rose, 13, caught the action camera in 20ft of water with her rod and line while fishing with her family from a small pier in Poole Harbour, Dorset.

Despite the device being covered in barnacles, winkles and full of sea water the SD card inside it still worked.

Her brother Dan, 26, transferred the contents to a computer to find a video that showed the moment the camera plunged into the sea and sunk slowly to the sandy floor 11 months before.

It carried on recording for 30 minutes, at one point capturing a large inquisitive crab inspecting the gadget with its claws.

Remarkably, the GoPro has been traced to Josh after Dan uploaded the video to social media and somebody recognised his cousin Rachel Simkin who was fleetingly caught on the film before it was lost.

Josh, from Raunds, Northhants, was made aware of the video and sent Dan a Facebook message.

Dan, a mobile phone technician, has managed to repair the device and will give it back to Josh in two weeks time when he visits Poole.

Josh, a trainee plumber, said: "I couldn't believe it when I found out someone had recovered my camera. I thought it would be miles out to sea by now. Talk about finding a needle in a haystack.

"Even if someone did find it I thought they would keep it for themselves instead of having the honesty to give it back.

"I am really grateful to Maddie and Dan for everything they have done. I'm looking forward to getting it back as there is other footage on there from my holiday last year that I never got to see."

Josh had been on holiday in Poole with his family last August when he lost the GoPro.

He said: "At the time I thought doing a flip in to the water with the camera strapped to my head would make for some great footage.

"I felt it dislodge and saw it go into the water. I tried several times to dive down to find it but the water was too deep. I was pretty gutted that I lost it."

Dan and Maddie, from Poole, caught the camera on July 5 after casting 30ft out to sea in their hunt for sea bass.

Dan said: "Maddie was so excited when she felt something on the end of her line, she thought she had caught a fish. "She looked so disappointed when it appeared she had just reeled in a bit of seaweed.

"But in the end it was quite exciting because we got to go home and watch what we had found."

He added: "As soon as it came out of the water I thought, 'I need to get this working.'

"I knew there was a possibility that could have captured something interesting while underwater.

"It was so damaged that I thought there was no chance it would work but to my surprise it did.

"I uploaded a condensed version the video online thinking that it might entertain a few friends but it has been shared on social media over 30,000 times.

"I'm really looking forward to meeting Rachel and Josh, I can't wait to see how happy he is when he gets his GoPro back in full working order."

In 2014 a disabled man lost his £8,000 prosthetic leg after diving in to the sea from the same pier.

Roy Wright, 45, almost drowned after his false limb became detached when he entered the sea. The leg was never found.