Fishing trawler skipper Rangi Pene knew he'd netted the catch of the day when he winched his net up from the ocean floor.
About halfway down the net was a large mass which, as the net drew closer, Mr Pene knew was not your everyday fish.
It was in fact the catch of a lifetime - a six-metre long, 230kg squid, which is now in a freezer in Portland, waiting for collection by Museum Victoria.
"As soon as we seen it, we (thought) we'll have to save this," the excited skipper said.
The trawler, Zeehaan, was fishing about 40km off the coast of Portland in Victoria's west, when it netted the squid on Sunday night in waters more than 500 metres deep.
"What we do is we shoot the net away and we tow the net for five hours," Mr Pene, 55, said.
"When we winched it up about six o'clock, we seen a big ball in the net, halfway down.
"We were wondering, what's this?
"We got it closer to the boat and it was that squid.
"You couldn't put it anywhere down in the ice room with the rest of the fish because it was just too big.
"We left it on the deck and we put bags of ice on it and covered it with sacks to keep it in good condition."
Paul McCoy, a Fisheries Research Biologist with Victoria's Department of Primary Industries, said it took 10 men to lift the squid onto a stretcher and place it in the freezer.
The squid will be frozen until a representative from Museum Victoria collects the specimen this week.
Mr McCoy said analysis by the museum would determine the type of squid, its age and, possibly, how it died.
He said the squid was already dead when it was caught.
It's the third giant squid Mr McCoy has seen in 15 years.
The find comes more than a year after New Zealand trawler skipper John Bennett caught what is believed to be the world's largest squid during an Antarctic fishing trip.
Scientists in New Zealand last month defrosted the 495kg colossal squid and determined it was 4.2 metres long, much shorter than earlier predictions of eight to 10 metres.
Colossal squid grow to be shorter, but much heavier, than giant squid, which are a different species.
Source: AAP
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