Posted on 11/26/2006 9:02:59 AM PST by FLOutdoorsman
An English school caretaker nearly drowned as he set a record for hooking the largest catfish in Europe, a 226 pound monster christened "Jaws" in Spain.
It took two friends to keep Carl Smith of Owestry from being dragged into the River Ebro in Spain after fighting the giant fish for 35 minutes, The Times of London reports.
"The force of the tug practically sent me crashing to the ground," Smith said. "It's mouth, with rows of sharp teeth, made it look like a man-eating shark."
European wels catfish are reputed to eat anything that can fit into their huge mouths.
The catfish was released after being weighed, measured and photographed with Smith holding his tail.
Common in Spain, Italy and Greece, the catfish generally weigh between 80 and 100 pounds.
The previous European record was 224 lbs.
A guy who lives at Lake Conroe(50 miles north of Houston) saw a ball bouncing around kind of strange in the lake and went to investigate.
It turned out to be a flathead catfish who had obviously tried to swallow a basketball which became stuck in its mouth!!
The fish was totally exhausted from trying to dive, but unable to because the ball would always bring him back up to the surface. The guy tried numerous times to get the ball out, but was unsuccessful. He finally had his wife cut the ball in order to deflate it and release the hungry catfish.
Noodling was just made legal here in MO last year. Believe it or not, people really do stick there arms under cut banks to grab fish like this!
Beat the old record by two pounds? I bet they were stuffing lead sinkers down its throat or fish anyway.
That's a lot of catfish nuggets!
Where do you get a frying pan that big?
Now there's a cause for celebration...
100 pound crickets!!!
They had a news special on it after it was made legal. Reaching in holes after something that can swallow your arm whole, levels the playing field and the same time it thins the gene pool!
Who's gonna tell the story about the catfish chasing the divers away from the dam? I've heard this lie told from Clearwater Fla to Detroit, every place that has a large body of fresh water.
Ever heard it? Two divers are sent down to check cracks in the dam, or to hook to a car that got in the water somehow, only to come back up and say they aint going back in there!! There are catfish down there bigger than us!
Lake Conroe ping...21
Sell it to Botine's restaurant in Madrid. Their chef and butcher knows what to do.
Grab a whole handful of PCB's while yer' at it too.
only 35 minutes? Soem dude caught this 60-70 lb catfish that took him over 6 hours to land maybe it was a bit bigger, but certainly nowhere near the size of this spanish one. http://sacredscoop.com
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I heard it about Parker Dam
[Good grief...what did they bait the hook with, a deer?]
Nope- just a beetle- cats love beetles- a volkswagon beetle that is
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