Fishing solo in a boat on Italy’s River Po, known for its huge wels catfish, Alessandro Biancardi made “a dream come true” by landing the biggest wels catfish he’s ever seen, and almost lost his boat doing so.
“When it surfaced for the first time, I really realized that I hooked a monster, adrenaline started pumping hard and the fear of losing it almost sent me into a panic,” Biancardi said in his news release. “I was alone facing the biggest catfish I’ve ever seen in 23 years.”
After a 43-minute battle, Biancardi got the wels catfish to the boat but without help it became challenging.
“I tried gloving its mouth two, three times, but it was still too strong,” Biancardi stated. “[So] I decided to go in shallow water, trying to land it from shore and after a few tries, I managed to land it.”
He tied up the catfish in the water to let it recover and phoned friends for help measuring the beast.
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“Then I suddenly realized that the boat was not anchored, and it was going away in the current,” he said. “I was forced to have a swim to recover it with all my stuff.”
Eventually he and friends managed to measure the fish. With 10 witnesses looking on, the wels catfish stretched 9 feet, 4.4 inches long, qualifying it for the International Game Fish Association all-tackle world record for length by 1.6 inches, according to Biancardi. He sent in the paperwork to IGFA, so it is a pending world record.
“I was very curious about the weight, but I feared stressing it too much, that rare specimen, so I decided to safely release it, hoping it could give another angler the same joy he gave to me,” he said.
On Instagram, Biancardi, who is on the MADCAT Fishing Team, wrote “After a week I can’t get this record-breaking catch out of my mind,” adding, “After years of constant dedication, I managed to make a dream come true.”
Photos courtesy of Alessandro Biancardi.