Tag: wels catfish

Huge catfish ‘would obliterate’ a record, but angler isn’t interested

A fisherman at a catch-and-release lake in England landed a wels catfish that apparently would qualify as a British record, and by a lot.

A fisherman in England landed a 133-pound wels catfish at a catch-and-release pay lake in Wisbech, Cambridgeshire, that apparently would qualify as a British record, and by a lot.

The catch by Tomas Marcinkevicius “would obliterate” the official record of 62 pounds caught from Withy Pool in 1997, according to AnglingTimes.

But Marcinkevicius, who is an avid fisherman of catfish, isn’t interested, telling AnglingTimes, “It’d be nice, but I already know of larger UK cats that’ve been caught. I’m just happy with the fish.”

Those bigger wels catfish that he talks about having been caught previously simply didn’t qualify for record status when caught because the British Record Fish Committee suspended record-taking for the species over 20 years ago.

The BRFC stopped recording record weights for wels catfish in October 2000 because of its concern with it being an imported fish. But in November 2023, the committee readmitted the catfish to its record list after the threat of importing large catfish has diminished since the self-sustaining population is growing to big sizes.

Record or not, it is an impressive catch, especially considering the best time to fish for the species is during the warmer months.

But Marcinkevicius has been on a roll in these colder months.

He told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors that on Dec. 9-10 he caught a 115-pounder, a 97.5-pounder and six others over 70 pounds, along with a few in the 50- and 60-pound range. He said he caught over 30 fish, and lost count.

Then about a week later, at Willowcroft Fisheries, he hooked into what he thought was a 50- to 60-pounder.

“On the way close to the bank, he hadn’t realized I had hooked him, then he turned around and ran to the other side of the lake,” he told USA Today/For The Win Outdoors.

When he saw the tail slap the surface and his head come out of the water, he started shaking and the adrenaline started pumping.

“I knew it was a big fish,” he said.

After 30 minutes, he landed the wels catfish and slipped it into a weighing sling to capture its weight of 133-plus pounds before releasing the fish.

“It’s my biggest fish so far that I’ve caught in my life,” he said. “I’m really pleased.”

The fishing concession asked him to name the fish. He named it Tom Cat.

Incidentally, the world record for a wels catfish is 297 pounds, 9 ounces caught by Attila Zsedely in the river Po in Italy on March 11, 2010, according to the International Game Fish Association, the keeper of world records.

 

Fisherman lands world-record-size catfish that stretches over 9 feet

An angler in Italy made “a dream come true” by landing the biggest wels catfish he’s ever seen, and almost lost his boat doing so.

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.

Despite freezing, angler lands 222-pound catfish after a half-mile tow

A fisherman braving temperatures below freezing was targeting carp on the Ebro River in Spain when his “little 10-foot rod” bent in half.

A fisherman braving temperatures below freezing was targeting carp from the banks of the Ebro River in Spain when his “little 10-foot rod” bent in half with line “ripping off” his reel, indicating it was much larger than a carp.

Being an experienced wels catfish angler, Ditch Ballard knew it had to be one of Ebro’s monster catfish, so he untied his 12-foot aluminum boat, climbed in and began what he would later call “the biggest battle of my fishing career.”

The air temperature was around 27 degrees Fahrenheit and the windchill made it more miserable, but Ballard persevered during this nighttime fishing excursion.

“The next hour was simply painful,” he stated on Facebook. “As my muscles fatigued and the adrenaline wore off my body temp began to crash, and I found myself crouched in the bottom of the boat trying to hold on whilst shivering uncontrollably.

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“At one point panic set in as I thought I could see my braid fraying in the first rod guide, but on closer inspection it turned out to be icy slush forming in all the guides as the wet braid ran through under tension.

“Eventually the leader knot appeared in the darkness and I knew my prize was close. What I didn’t know is just how far I had been towed down river; I was now over 1km (.62 miles) from home!

“I struggled to put on the gloves (they were frozen too!) and began hand lining, putting way more pressure on that Fang X hook than should be possible!

“I needed this battle to be over one way or another, so I just pulled with all I had left in me. Each time the fish ran I nearly lost a digit, as by this time my hands were so cold they weren’t really doing what my brain was telling them.”

Eventually, the 8-foot catfish surfaced and Ballard managed to get a hand in its jaw and secured his trophy catfish.

“It was the biggest battle of my fishing, career, yet I wouldn’t wish it on anyone,” he wrote.

The sun was up by the time he put it on a tarpaulin to weigh and measure. After doing so, he released it back into the river, according to the Daily Mail. The catfish was 28 pounds shy of the record for the Ebro River.

Ballard, who runs Ebro Mad Cats specializing on targeting wels catfish and carp on the Ebro River, posted about his catch on Facebook last month. It was well received by his admirers.

“Great catch and I’m sure you deserve every praise,” one wrote. “Sounds like a great battle. Glad you won to tell the story.”

Stated another, “What an amazing experience, one you’ll be able to tell the rest of your life…The signature fisherman’s story.”

Photos courtesy of Ditch Ballard.

Angler ‘panicked slightly’ at sight of vivid yellow ‘Mandarin catfish’

When Martin Glatz first saw the color of the fish he was fighting, he couldn’t believe its beauty, and his reaction was priceless.

When Martin Glatz first saw the color of the fish he was reeling in, the German fisherman couldn’t believe how beautiful it was, and his reaction was an apparent rush of adrenaline, along with the thought that he didn’t want this one to get away.

“At first, I was expecting a big pike,” Glatz explained to Field and Stream. “The fight was comparable to a large 47-inch pike. When I saw what color the fish was, I panicked slightly and yelled at my brother to call for the net.”

The vivid yellow fish was netted and was identified as a “Mandarin catfish,” sometimes called a golden catfish.

The Etang de Azat-Chatenet fishery in France described the Mandarin catfish as the same as a European wels catfish but one that is leucistic. “Leucism in a fish is a condition in which there is partial loss of pigmentation in an animal which causes white, pale or patchy coloration of the skin,” the site states.

Glatz took some photos and then released the fish with hopes it will grow to be “very big,” he told Field and Stream.

The wels catfish, a freshwater fish native to Europe, can grow to over 8 feet and weigh over 400 pounds.

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Glatz, who fishes two to three days a week, made this catch and release on Oct. 4 while fishing with his twin brother on a lake in the Netherlands.

“Friends, I still can’t quite believe how beautiful the little guy was,” Glatz wrote on Instagram. “I’m still overwhelmed.”

Angeldomaene, an outdoor equipment store in German that sponsors the fishing twins, called it a “dream fish.”

Photo courtesy of Martin Glatz.

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