Italy: Angler lands record-breaking 'prehistoric' catfish in epic battle - Business Insider
- An angler caught a 9-foot-long "monster" catfish in an Italian river after a 40-minute battle.
- The enormous wels catfish was likely a world-record breaker in length.
- But Alessandro Biancardi said that he did not want to "stress" the rare specimen by weighing it.
A huge wels catfish reeled in by an angler in an Italian river is said to be the largest ever caught in a river.
The catfish is likely to be a world-record breaker in length, coming in at 9 feet 3 inches long. But the fisherman, Alessandro Biancardi, said that he chose not to weigh the "monster" to see if it was also the heaviest catfish ever because of the fear of harming it.
The gigantic fish was caught late last month in the Po River in northern Italy.
"When we measured the fish on the mat. Under the incredulous eyes of many anglers, the meter stopped at 285 centimeters. It was the new world record catfish," Biancardi wrote on his fishing team's Madcat's blog.
Madcat creates and sells fishing equipment in Europe and supports anglers who catch large fish.
Biancardi described the battle to land the amazing creature on Madcat's website: "I calmly managed to fight what I felt to be a prehistoric fish," he wrote.
"In silence, I approached the first spot, and after a few casts, a powerful bite arose. The fish stood still some seconds before starting a very complicated fight."
Biancardi wrote that he knew he had "hooked a monster" after battling the fish for "40 endless minutes," adding that it almost caused him to panic because he was "alone facing the biggest catfish I had ever seen in 23 years."
However, Biancardi said he never imagined it would likely be the longest catfish ever caught.
Biancardi said that ten people witnessed the official measuring of the fish and that documentation had been sent to qualify for the International Game Fish Association catch-and-release length record.
This fish would beat the International Game Fish Association's current wels catfish length record by 1.57 inches if confirmed by the association.
The current all-tackle record for a wels catfish in the River Po was set in 2010 when an angler caught one weighing 297 pounds 9 ounces, USA Today reported. The heaviest catfish ever recorded was caught in Thailand and weighed 646 pounds.
Even so, the fishermen said he let the beast go without weighing it because he "feared to stress" the rare specimen.
"I decided to safely release it, hoping it could give another angler the same joy he gave to me," he said.
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