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280-pound catfish: Wels catfish caught by Italian fisherman could swallow a man
Examiner ^ | 2/25/15 | Tina Burgess

Posted on 02/25/2015 7:26:31 PM PST by randita

The 280-pound catfish caught by an Italian fisherman is a record-setting wels catfish. With an enormous weight of 280 pounds and a length of 8.8 feet, the catfish caught by Dino Ferrari has some people wondering whether the monstrous catfish could in fact eat a man if it wanted to do so.

According to a Feb. 24 USA Today report, the photo taken of the Italian fisherman and his massive catch certainly seems to show “that this thing could just swallow an adult if it wanted to. It’s enormous.”

Italian fisherman Dino Ferrari caught the wels catfish on Thursday in the Po Delta, which is part of the famous Po River. With a length of more than 400 miles, the Po River is the longest river in Italy. The Po River and the Delta are known among fishermen for big wels catfish – but a length of 8.8 feet astonished even Ferrari, who is an expert fisherman.

The wels catfish is a fresh and salt water fish native to central, southern, and eastern Europe. As can be seen in the picture, it is scaleless with a broad, flat head and wide mouth. The wels catfish is the second-largest freshwater fish found in the Po region. The largest fish is the beluga sturgeon which can reportedly weigh more than 3,000 pounds.

(Excerpt) Read more at examiner.com ...


TOPICS: Outdoors; Pets/Animals
KEYWORDS: catfish; fish; italy; welscatfish
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To: demshateGod

Okies catch big flathead with their bear hands.
Let it marinate in a watering trough for a few days and it tastes fine. But then you gotta catch it again.


41 posted on 02/25/2015 8:45:44 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar; RegulatorCountry

Carp? Out of the Arkansas River?

I was going to say yer sick but, I recall the annual river float and swimming in the water, sometimes swallowing river water along with muh beer...


42 posted on 02/25/2015 8:46:10 PM PST by Vendome (Don't take life so seriously-you won't live through it anyway-Enjoy Yourself ala Louis Prima)
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To: Ruy Dias de Bivar
Something else doesn't ring true about this tale: catching a catfish on an artificial lure (a "spinning torpedo").

I've never known a catfish to take an artificial lure. Chicken guts, livers, stink bait, you bet. But a spinning lure...???

43 posted on 02/25/2015 8:47:14 PM PST by okie01
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To: okie01

Actually I have caught catfish on an artificial lure. Many years ago I was fishing in front of the cooling water intake of a power plant lake. Fish love to congregate there as the food comes to them due to the suction of the pumps. I believe it was plastic worms, and yes, the hooks were in the catfishes mouth. No snagging.


44 posted on 02/25/2015 8:52:47 PM PST by Ruy Dias de Bivar
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To: okie01

Might as well try a Mepps spinner. Cats just ignore that stuff.
I’ve used fermented shad sides so rank that I had to wear rubber gloves and hold my breath to put it on treble hooks. Hot summer day, flies like a cloud—now that’s still fishing.

But Mr. Whiskers loves that happy crappy! Goldfish, hotdogs, dough bait work too.


45 posted on 02/25/2015 8:56:01 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: RegulatorCountry

You must live around strange people if you guys have been rejecting wild catfish all your life.


46 posted on 02/25/2015 8:57:32 PM PST by ansel12 (Palin--Mr President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.)
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To: ansel12

Regale me with your many tales of catching, gutting and preparing wild catfish, ansel12. How do you prefer them?


47 posted on 02/25/2015 9:03:30 PM PST by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

Growing up in the 50 and sixties, we loved our catfish.


48 posted on 02/25/2015 9:13:37 PM PST by ansel12 (Palin--Mr President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.)
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To: RegulatorCountry

I have heard that Ansel is fast enough to scoop 2-3 pound channel cats right out of streams and ponds with his bare mitts.
Once he was perforated by a fin spine—those things are poisonous, you know—so Ansel bit it’s head off and ate it raw.
He’s a regular Smeagol, gollum gollum.

Keep in mind that I take melatonin occasionally to help me sleep and it gives vivid dreams, so it might not have actually been Ansel and I may have embellished or imagined a small portion, some or all of that fish story.


49 posted on 02/25/2015 9:22:49 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: randita

Not as deadly as the Chappaquiddick Carp! aka Ted Kennedy!


50 posted on 02/25/2015 9:24:33 PM PST by Busko (The only thing that is certain is that nothing is certain.)
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To: OftheOhio

I used to see 6 footers off the breakwall in Milwaukee. Impressive! Of course they were eating the effluent from the sewage plant.


51 posted on 02/25/2015 9:31:55 PM PST by Dr. Bogus Pachysandra (Don't touch that thing Don't let anybody touch that thing!I'm a Doctor and I won't touch that thing!)
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To: tumblindice

What’s with the trolling?

Do you have some disagreement from some past thread that you need to go back to and post to me from?

That is the way it is done, instead of posting behind my back on a thread, in a personal attack completely out of the blue.


52 posted on 02/25/2015 9:32:47 PM PST by ansel12 (Palin--Mr President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.)
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To: yarddog

Old catfish aren’t good for eating.


53 posted on 02/25/2015 9:42:12 PM PST by Jeff Chandler (Doctrine doesn't change. The trick is to find a way around it.)
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To: ansel12

Calm down big fella! My mistake.
You sounded like a fisherman, so I mistakenly assumed you had a sense of humor.
You are apparently completely humorless, so I won’t make that mistake again.
Btw, good luck finding that Ring ....


54 posted on 02/25/2015 9:42:27 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: ansel12

PS “behind my back”
It sounds as though your paranoia makes up for any humor deficiency.
You don’t read threads in which you post?

Good luck with that! Try to lighten up. You’ll live longer.
Later gator.
(Not a threat, btw—just advice. You seem a little intense.)


55 posted on 02/25/2015 9:47:50 PM PST by tumblindice (America's founding fathers: all armed conservatives.)
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To: tumblindice

A long insulting post without pinging me?

And then you follow it up with another attack accusing me of lacking a sense of humor to see that what you did was actually not insulting, when you didn’t even post it to me, or even ping me to it.


56 posted on 02/25/2015 9:49:30 PM PST by ansel12 (Palin--Mr President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.)
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To: tumblindice

Wow, another attack post.

Post 54 wasn’t enough for you.

Why not just get back to the thread.


57 posted on 02/25/2015 9:51:41 PM PST by ansel12 (Palin--Mr President, the only thing that stops a bad guy with a nuke is a good guy with a nuke.)
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To: randita

If that is real it would weigh a lot more than 280 lbs.


58 posted on 02/25/2015 10:15:44 PM PST by aquila48
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To: randita

heck where I come from we use those size fish for bait!


59 posted on 02/25/2015 11:39:10 PM PST by Bob434
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To: Lurkina.n.Learnin

I think that photo is staged with the guy standing well behind the hog, and the camera up close to it. The hog’s not nearly as big as it looks.


60 posted on 02/26/2015 1:05:23 AM PST by Hugin ("Do yourself a favor--first thing, get a firearm!")
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