Shark bites U.K. man during picture pose

DEVON, England, Sept. 2 (UPI) -- A British fisherman says he won't give up fishing despite a nasty bite from a blue shark he had just reeled in.

Stephen Perkins, 52, of Glamorgan in South Wales, had the dicey honor of being the first person on record to be bitten by a blue off the U.K. coast. He was airlifted to a hospital to save his arm

"The scariest bit, to be honest, was going up in a helicopter," Perkins told the Daily Telegraph Tuesday. "It won't put me off fishing again but I will remember to pick the shark up by the blunt end in future."

Perkins was having his picture taken with his still-feisty catch on the back of the boat off the coast of Devon when the shark reached out and chomped him on the wrist.

"We don't harm the sharks when we hook them," Perkins said. "We just take a picture and put them back in the water."

The Telegraph said the number of blue sharks in the waters off Cornwall and Devon has been on the rise in recent years, apparently due to warmer water temperatures.