Dad and daughter discover 'beautiful' octopus on Devon coast after mistaking it for fishing net

A huge octopus was found by a dad and his daughter while fishing in Torquay.

Ziggy Austin was at Hope's Nose when the pair spotted something unusual lying on the rocks.

Ziggy and his daughter Lauren initially mistook the creature for a "wrecking fishing net".

He said: "It was very unusual. I was stood on the edge of Hope's Nose looking down over the side and I could see something that looked like a kind of wrecked fishing net.

"Then a big wave came in and moved it and it rolled over and I saw these tentacles. And I was like 'Oh my fricking god! It's an octopus.'

"So I got down on the side of the rocks, de-rigged my rod and used the end of my rods to reach it to kind of snag it and dragged it up.

"Then Lauren managed to get hold of one of its tentacles and dragged it up onto the rocks. It was something very unusual."

As a scuba diver and owner of a coasteering business, Ziggy has seen a lot of wildlife.

He believes the octopus he found is a common octopus.

This type of octopus is generally about 30cm to 91cm, according to National Geographic, but Ziggy thinks the one he found was more like two metres across.

He said: "This thing is much bigger than a metre, I think it's almost two metres, it's absolutely huge.

"I haven't measured it yet which is why I want to take it home and measure it officially because it might be the biggest one ever seen.

"Normally you see them and they're like the size of your fist, a couple of feet across, if that."

The octopus was sadly already dead when Ziggy found it.

He said he believes it was eaten by a seal that regularly visits and steals fish off of fishermen's lines.

He said: "It was dead but it was still kind of twitching, so it was really fresh.

"The seal must have bitten its head off. The brain would have been huge."

Ziggy estimated the octopus weighs 10kg but would weigh it properly once he got home.

He has plans for cooking up the octopus too.

He said: "I won the Torquay edition of Come Dine With Me a few years back so I'll cook something special with this beautiful specimen."

He added: "I would never kill such an amazing creature, but I don't want it to go to waste.

"All my friends are already messaging for a piece."

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