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TWO years ago Eric Bartos, in a symbolic act prompted by the break-up of his marriage, slipped his wedding ring off his finger and onto the bill of a sailfish he and friends had caught off the Florida coast. They then returned the fish to the ocean.

Two weeks ago Mr Bartos was out fishing again when he landed a good-sized sailfish. His wedding ring was still secured to its bill.

A fishy story? Just another fisherman trawling for attention?

Sceptics said the odds against him catching the same fish were too great. However, a lie detector test conducted by Doug Reno, nephew of the former US Attorney-General, Janet Reno, showed that there was nothing fishy about the tale.

Mr Bartos, 38, passed the test conclusively, indicating that his story was “overwhelmingly truthful”, Mr Reno said.

In addition, photographs of the fish, which, in accordance with sport-angling guidelines, Mr Bartos released back into the sea, show a well-worn groove in its bill where the gold band stayed for 25 months.

“To me it’s a compliment that some people don’t believe us,” Mr Bartos said. “It just shows us how miraculous this story is.”

Jamie Artzt, a friend and fellow angler, who took the photographs, said yesterday: “This is a true story of luck, fate and a love of fishing.”

Mr Bartos’s first encounter with the sailfish came on December 28, 2002, during a deep-sea fishing expedition with Mr Artzt and another friend, Blake Liebeskind, off Fort Lauderdale. He had split up with his wife Susan and a divorce was looming.

“Eric had decided that his wedding ring was a reminder of his lost love, and his love for fishing was surely stronger,” Mr Artzt said.

After wrestling the 40lb fish into the boat, they threaded Mr Bartos’s ring onto its bill “to mark an end and a beginning to chapters in his life”, snapped some photographs and let it go. “In typical guy fashion we never discussed the ring or our feelings about that day again,” Mr Artzt said.

Until January 22 this year, that is. After a frustrating day on the water, the friends were preparing to return to shore empty-handed at the end of the Rod and Reel Club’s Interclub Sailfish Tournament when a sailfish took their bait. As they dragged it onto the boat, Mr Liebeskind shouted: “It’s the ring fish.” The ring had become wedged in position because the fish’s bill had grown around it.

Mr Bartos’s story has even won over his ex-wife, to whom he had not spoken in 26 months. “I received a telephone call from her yesterday,” he said. “She said, ‘I think it’s a sign for us to make peace’.”