A fisherman at Central Park in New York discovered he had hooked a dead body when he felt something heavy on the end of his line.

Luis Castoire, who was fishing at the Harlem Meer, a lake at the northeastern part of the park on Thursday, said he realised what it was when he started reeling his line in.

“I thought I was seeing a ghost,” Mr Castoire told NBC New York. “I felt a thump, my hook had gotten stuck… When I go to lift it, I seen the leg come up, and then I saw the rest of the body.”

Mr Castoire, who said he’s been fishing in Central Park since he was seven years old, said he had to look away from his catch.

“It was devastating, really devastating. I couldn’t believe it with my own eyes, I just couldn’t,” he said.

He and other fishermen called police, who taped off the area in the busy park and removed the body.

The victim is thought to be a man in his 30s from Harlem, who had suffered some sort of head wound, but a cause of death had not yet been determined.

Mr Castoire told NBC he was unsure if he’d ever be able to go back to fish at that spot again.

“I don’t think I could be able to come back to this park. This is like my backyard. I don’t think personally I could come back to this park and be able to fish here, knowing that I hooked up into a body,” he said.

It is the third body which has been found in Central Park this month.

A man in his 50s was found dead on the west side of the park last week, while another man was found floating in the pond near 59th Street on 7 September.