It 'Came From Mars,' Seattle Fisherman Catches 350-pound Sunfish

Fisherman Todd LaClair described his headline-generating haul as "something that came from Mars" Tuesday after he caught a 350-pound sunfish from his boat in Puget Sound in full view of the Seattle skyline, the Seattle Times reported.

LaClair said he knew he was on to something big when his fishing line became very heavy, very quickly.

"I was fishing at about 100 feet deep, and as I pulled in the net I could feel that it was big," said LaClair, who belongs to the Muckleshoot tribe of Native Americans. "When it first came up, it startled me and looked like something that came from Mars."

The sunfish was so big that LaClair had to enlist the help of men on a larger vessel nearby for help. It took the strength of four men to get the sunfish aboard.

Sunfish, also known as mola mola, are not native to the waters of Puget Sound.

Mark Baltzell, a Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife biologist, told the Seattle Times that there "have been lots of weird fish showing up in Puget Sound this year."

"There was a sunfish seen by a sport angler at Boston Harbor in Budd Inlet in southern Puget Sound, and a Pacific mackerel caught in Commencement Bay," he said.

But for as big as LaClair's catch was, it was not very big for a sunfish, which are the heaviest known boney fish in the world. An average adult sunfish weighs about 2,200 pounds, and sunfish as heavy as 5,000 pounds have been reported.

To maintain their size, sunfish live on a diet that includes a huge amounts of jellyfish, zooplankton and algae.

Sunfish have a strange shape. When their fins are fully extended they can measure as tall and they do long. Their bodies are laterally flat, making it seem as if they have been run over by a steamroller when viewed at certain angles.

In parts of Asia, the sunfish is considered a delicacy of the sea.

LaClair reportedly took his sunfish to an area eatery coincidentally named Sunfish Fish & Chips. The fish was on display there, drawing crowds of curious onlookers. It was unclear whether the fish would hit the fryers.

The photo below is a sunfish at an aquarium in Denmark. The Seattle Times published a shot of LaClair's sunfish on ice here.