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Surprise: Norwegian man hauls in seal not fish

The Local Norway
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Surprise: Norwegian man hauls in seal not fish
A grey seal. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Trondheim fisherman, Wictor Wahlberg, set his lines in Verrafjorden to catch a large halibut on Monday night. He caught a 300kg grey seal instead.

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“I saw that the buoy to which the line was attached had moved several hundred metres during the night. That’s when I realised that something was afoot. But I never dreamed that there would be a 300kg seal on the hook,” Wahlberg told the Norwegian newspaper Adressa.

But when he and his brother-in-law and nephew tried to haul the catch into their boat, they struggled. “We could do nothing to lift it into the boat. After an hour we just had to get it on to land. Then I called the police to find out what we should do,” said Wahlberg, who had never had to remove a seal from a hook before.

Operations officer at South Trøndelag Police, Ebbe Kimo, admitted that it was the first time he had received such an inquiry. “What should one do with such a catch? I must say that there was not very much we could contribute. So we called for the wildlife patrol in Agdenes.”

When the wildlife patrol arrived they decided to put the seal out of its misery because the seal was too deeply hooked and distressed.

This is the second time Wahlberg has fished for halibut - the first time he caught a small shark.

Wahlberg admits he has not yet quite got the hang of fishing for halibut, but has not given up hope of catching one.

“I'll try again, but I hope I don’t catch another seal! It was a big struggle with the seal. It was as heavy as my niece’s pony!”Surprise: Norwegian man hauls in seal not fish

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