Hobby fisherman Denis Kerr caught a rare fish off the waters of the South Shore, causing some buzz within the industry.

The three-foot long fish, known as a Cobia, has been spotted only a handful of times in Bermuda's waters in the last five decades, but is abundant in warm waters off the coast of the US.

Mr. Kerr, a tourist from New Zealand, caught the fish while out on the water with his partner Lynne's father, local fisherman, Harry Horseman.

Mr. Kerr told The Royal Gazette: "We had gone out fishing and had stopped at a reef area and were putting a few fish frames down, just cleaning a few fish off."

"And it actually swam around us. It kind of looked like a puppy shark. That is what I thought it was to start with, because it was scooting around the top (of the water) and it cruised like a shark.

"It actually went away from the boat and then a couple minutes later came back, and I decided to pull a bait over to see whether I could get it and he just took it straight away," he said.

It wasn't only when they showed the fish to other fisherman on June 12 that Mr. Kerr and Mr. Horseman realised how rare their catch was.

Mr. Kerr said: "We were trying to identify it. There was another man on the boat and he knew what it was because he had seen it being caught on fishing programmes out of the States.

"At first the only name we could think of was tarpon but then we realised that it wasn't.

"When I took a photograph into the guys at Fly Bridge Tackle one of them said he caught enough Cobia to know that this was a Cobia, but he didn't know of one being caught in Bermuda."

Fly Bridge Tackle manager Bobby Rego has been a fisherman for over 50 years and has never heard of a Cobia being caught so close to Bermuda.

Mr. Rego said: "I was absolutely surprised. As far as I am concerned it is an unknown catch in Bermuda. We don't get it this far up here, it is usually down south on the Eastern Seaboard near the Florida Keys.

"But once you see the picture it is distinctively a Cobia. It is brown on top and white on the belly. I believe it is closely associated with the shark family. "

The veteran fisherman added: "I have caught them in the Keys but I have never seen it in Bermuda — it's a rarity."

According to Ian Walker, Principle Curator for Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo, the first known Cobia was brought to the museum in 1957.

"It had been seen in Bermuda waters and certainly we have seen all these before my time (as curator). We actually displayed them in our tanks," Dr. Walker said. "My understanding is it is something that doesn't occur all the time, but something that surprises you when someone gets it."

He continued: "It was the first time someone has asked me in six years about it. It is amazing the stuff that paces through Bermuda's waters that I never knew about."