Littlehampton fisherman catches ‘guns’ while fishing off the coast

The closest thing to weapons you might expect to find in a fishing net is a swordfish.

But Daniel Stevens got the next best thing when he hauled up some guns from the depths off the coast of Littlehampton.

The 40-year-old said: “I was just in shock. The first one came up, and two metres later the next one came up.”

Daniel was fishing for dover sole five-and-a-half miles into the English Channel at around 6am on Monday, October 28, when he made the discovery.

The two guns were intact but were badly eroded, so he stored them in the workshop of the Littlehampton Shipyard in Rope Walk, Littlehampton, where he worked.

Meanwhile, the Littlehampton fisherman posted photos of his find on social media, with some speculating they could be Second World War weapons dropped there during an amnesty after it ended.

However, Daniel said it turned out they were in fact replica guns ‘that may well have been used for a misdemeanour’ and ‘dumped in the sea’.

He said he would contact Sussex Police to surrender the items.

Daniel, whose vessel was called the Dawn Star, said he had been fishing off the coast of Littlehampton for 18 years.

In that time, a few interesting finds had turned up in the nets of his and his colleagues, such as ammunition and even a grenade that had to be diffused by the bomb squad.