The pair was fishing off Cairns last week with Kiama’s Simon Smithers aboard the Little Audrey when Mr Smithers hooked a 600 pound black marlin.

That in itself was memorable enough, but what followed has gone viral on the internet.

Just minutes after hooking the marlin, the giant fish started to jump.

As it was a tag and release fishery the boat was being reversed to bring it close to the marlin so it could be tagged, however the fish had other ideas and jumped right onto the edge of the boat.

In fact it might have gone all the way into the boat had Craig Murphy not been standing in the way holding a Go-Pro camera on top of a pole.

“He hit me in the shoulder, his shoulder came into contact with my shoulder,” Mr Murphy said.

As he was pushed backwards Mr Murphy tripped over an esky, sustaining a large bruise on his leg.

At the same time the fish knocked a ladder flying, hitting a deckhand from the United States who four years earlier lost an eye in a similar encounter.

The action was captured on four cameras set up on the boat.

The fish was caught on Tuesday of last week, but because they were fishing in an area without mobile phone or internet coverage they were unable to upload the footage to YouTube until Friday night when the boat berthed at Cooktown.

Mr Murphy said the response was almost instant, with a US weather station picking up the footage and contacting the group about an exclusive deal within three hours of it being posted.

Mr Murphy said no one was interested in an exclusive deal.

“We were just a few mates out fishing,” he said of the annual expedition that yielded six marlins up to 800 pounds over five days – all tagged and released.

However the video quickly went viral, and by yesterday afternoon had been viewed close to 3.6 million times.

“It’s incredible the way it’s taken off,” Mr Murphy said.

He revealed a friend from the United Kingdom had even emailed him a link to the video, with the words, “Get a load of this,” not realising who was involved.

The video can be found at www.youtube.com. Search for “600lb black marlin jumps in boat.”