Catmasters Tours says the eight-foot-long catfish, a wels catfish pulled from the Ebro River after a 20-minute fight, is the heaviest albino catfish ever caught on rod and reel.
The cream-coloured beast, which was released after being weighed, was two pounds heavier than the previous record, caught and released last year on the same stretch of the river by Sheila Penfold, who is blind.
Colin Bunn, a spokesman for Catmasters, said in an interview that Grimmer’s catfish was initially thought to be the same fish, “but when we reviewed the photos it was a different fish.”
Grimmer told the Express: “He took my reel and stripped it and that’s when I knew it was a big one. My partner went into the water to help get him out. “I was jumping up and down the bench when I realized it was a record.”
The International Sport Fishing Association. does not track “albino” catfish records, but the IGFA lists the all-tackle record for wels catfish as a 297-pound, 9-ounce specimen caught last year in Italy’s Po River.
Regarding wels catfish, the IGFA website states that there are “stories of attacking and drowning dogs and even children, but these are based on rumours, rather than observation”.
