Fisherman catches deer half-mile off coast

This is definitely a unique catch.

A fishing boat captain off the coast of England, thought he saw shark off in the distance. When the boat got closer to the animal, however, he realized he wasn’t looking at a shark.

He had found a deer swimming a half-mile off the coast.

Mark Bowditch found the deer swimming in waters that were over 150-feet-deep, Southwest News Service (SWNS) reports. At the time, he was out with his partner and children, along with a charter guest, Morgan Lloyd. While they were prepared to catch some fish, they came across something completely different.

"Initially, I just thought it was a basking shark swimming slowly across the surface," Bowditch told SWNS. "Then when I got a little bit closer and it turned, I saw it had two ears!"

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Bowditch brought the boat and started making a plan to bring the distressed animal on board.

He explained, "We got the mackerel lines in so it wouldn't get caught, and then made a sort of lasso to catch it with. The current was going out, so it probably got caught in the tide and pulled out into the deep water. If we hadn't come across it, it would probably have just drowned."

According to Bowditch, this experience was a first for him.

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"I've heard about Deer swimming across Weymouth harbor before from other Skippers, but I've never seen any," he said.

The deer was safely brought on board on the boat and returned to land. When it came time to set it free, however, Bowditch found he had a new issue to deal with.

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"It wasn't really ready to go because it was so tired, we tried to set it free by the trees but it came back to us," he said. "I gave it some attention and then tried to scare it off a bit, eventually it ran off."