That was when the 8-foot-long, 416-pound halibut began to shake its giant head, putting incredible pressure on the gear.

“On handing back the rod to Christer catastrophe happened, the fish lunged hard and in that split second the rod broke in half,” Sportquest Holidays, which is headquartered in the U.K., explained in a news release issued Thursday. “Both the guide and customer knew their odds of landing such a fish had just been shattered.”

But a methodical tug-of-war began, with the captain keeping the boat directly over the fish to increase the odds of winning the battle.