An amateur photographer was walking along the water with his family when he captured a ten-minute sea battle between a seal and its latest catch.

Bob Ianson, 59, from Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, was strolling at Ogden Point when he got a front row seat to the struggle between the predator and an octopus.

The snapper, who owns a linen store, said that he originally thought the shapes in the water were two harbor seals before the hunter triumphed and showed off its prey.

'The seal came up with this thing in its mouth, and it was almost as if he looked me in the eye, and presented it to me and said, 'Look what I have!' He was looking right at me,' he told Huffington Post.

Mr Ianson estimates that the seal, which regularly eats octopus, is four and a half feet long.

Giant Pacific Octopuses can regularly reach 50 pounds, according to the Alaska Fisheries Science Center.

He said that the cephalopod put up a good fight against his attacker during a fight for survival that saw the pair dip down into the water for minutes at a time before resurfacing again.

'The third time he came back up, the octopus was wrapped around the seal ... The octopus literally had the entire head of the seal,' Mr Ianson said.