Two fishermen in Longhai, East China's Fujian province, have netted a fortune after catching a rare giant fish weighing more than 50 kilograms.

Lin Binghui and his brother Lin Lianfu caught the 51-kg fish off the coast of Fujian province on Monday morning and sold it for 800,000 yuan ($129,040) to a local fishmonger, according to the Straits Herald newspaper.

The fishmonger said that the price would have been higher if the fish had been delivered alive, the newspaper reported.

A staff member with the Zhangzhou ocean and fisheries bureau surnamed You told the newspaper that the fish, which features yellow scales and a red fin, resembles the Chinese Bahaba, a species that has been fished almost to extinction and is particularly valuable for its swim bladder, which is used by practitioners of traditional Chinese medicine to cure heart and lung ailments.

But the identification of the specimen requires an examination, You said.