‘Honestly lads, it was THIS big!’

For three days and nights, Tim Smith (right) sat patiently on the banks of one of France’s most famous fishing lakes with nothing more than a nibble on his line.

It was looking like he was going to be returning to Welshpool with nothing more than fishy tales of the ‘ones that got away’.

But in an instant, his autumn getaway to Dijon was to take a dramatic turn as his line became taut and the 41 year-old had a fight on his hands that would finish with him entering the record books.

“It was an incredible buzz,” said Tim. “In three days we had not even seen a fish let alone caught one and then it all changed.”

Tim knew immediately that something big had taken his bate but could never have imagined just how big. After a two-hour struggle, he had hooked the eighth biggest carp ever recorded at a whopping 82lbs. More than double his previous biggest catch of 40lbs.

“It was massive. It was so big that we didn’t want to take it out of the water because if we dropped it on land it could have killed it. So we weighed it in the water and after the photo, I put it back into the water.”

Most people would be happy to call it a day after catching such a fish but Tim has other ideas.

“The world’s biggest carp was captured in the same lake so I will speak nicely to the wife and hopefully come back to try and catch that one!” he said.

That biggest carp by the way is a net-busting 99lbs!