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| On August 31, 2009, I caught this 20.25"/5.11 pound Red Belly Pacu in the Sandusky River |
The story of my Red Belly Pacu caught in the Sandusky River near Fremont, Ohio, is pretty well traveled across the web in the years since the catch was made. If you found your way here though, you can hear the story firsthand. It's a story I never get tired of telling.
Nothing stood out about this particular Monday evening. It was somewhat unique to fish on a weekday, but my previous weekend's fishing effort went so poorly that I wanted nothing more than to simply catch some fish. My parent's home is on a productive stretch of the Sandusky River that finds Common Carp nearly always willing to bite. I fashioned a simple dough ball out of "Nickles Whole Grain White Bread" a foot or two above a bell sinker sent it out about 50 feet from shore. This basic offering has brought hundreds of carp to the net for me. My first bite was surprisingly quick and as I set the hook my line broke. I recalled thinking my line was a bit frayed but made the poor decision not to take a few feet off the line. After re-rigging and getting the line back in the water, I began tending to my second rod. While getting this rod ready, I saw that the other rod that I had wedged in the rocks, had fallen over. Just in case there was a fish, I did a slight tug to set the hook...
Immediately after setting the hook the rod vibrated in a very unusual fashion. The fight felt peculiar and I knew it wasn't a carp. The fish surfaced and turned over at the top of the water about 20 feet from shore, with me catching a glimpse of the reddish orange coloration and shape. I screamed for a net and my mind could only register 'giant Bluegill" from the image that had flashed in front of me. Before I could rehearse my speech for catching the all tackle world record Bluegill, I needed to get the fish landed. While the fish would turn out to be epic, the fight was not. Due to the fact I was targeting carp, my tackle was suitable for much larger fish. The fish itself, also helped by swimming right towards shore. I beached the fish right as my mom tossed me a net, securing the fish by pinning it against the rocks.
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| In the net, but no idea what I had caught |
I wasn't sure exactly what I had caught. As a somewhat proficient multi species angler, all I was sure of, was that I had caught some type of invasive species. I knew this wasn't a fish that should be in these waters. Seeing the teeth when removing the hook, I mistakenly thought it was a Piranha. I placed the fish in a large cooler and filled it with river water as I collected my thoughts. While I was super excited, I had no idea what the proper thing to do with the fish was. While contemplating that, I shot a short video holding the fish and did a good number of photos. The fish was returned to the cooler and was doing fine.
You can watch the video here;
*I get a lot of people correcting me and critiquing what I say in the video, remember that this is only a few minutes after catching the fish and I'm still in shock over it.
As I started to settle down, I called a friend who is a fish biologist and aquarist for Bass Pro Shops. I described the fish, and he correctly ID'ed the fish as a Pacu over the phone. I tried calling both the Cleveland and Toledo Zoo's, wanting to donate the live fish. Unable to reach anyone and knowing I would not release an invasive species back to the water, I decided I would have the fish mounted. I made a trip to the local WalMart and they were willing to give me a weight for the fish on a certified scale. After the weighing, I put the fish on ice and headed towards home. I stopped by Riverfront Marina and Campgrounds to show the fish to the Zoller family who has had this business on the Sandusky River for a couple generations. They had never seen anything like it caught out of the river.
The next day, on the way to Jim's Taxidermy in Port Clinton, Ohio, I stopped by the Sandusky ODNR Research Station. I showed the fish to ODNR biologist Travis Hartman who also identified the fish as a Pacu. We talked for quite awhile and I learned more about invasive catches amongst all kinds of other fishing topics.
Once the fish was at the taxidermist, I decided to phone the local paper in Fremont, Ohio. I thought maybe I was over enthused about the catch, but surprisingly the story was eagerly accepted. In a few short weeks the story ran in every Gannett owned newspaper in Ohio. It also ran in The Toledo Blade and I was seeing it all over the internet. Some places I knew about and others came as a complete surprise. The most shocking was seeing it on ESPN Outdoors and probably the neatest was the Port Clinton News Herald. The News Herald actually ran it as a front page article with a color picture.
So there you have it, my best fishing story and two seconds of fishing fame!
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| The completed mount at the scene of the catch |
Known places the story was covered; NEWSPAPERS: Fremont News Messenger 9/2/09, Port Clinton News Herald 9/2/09, Bucyrus Telegraph Forum 9/3/09, The Toledo Blade 9/11/09 WEBSITES: Fishing-Headquarters.com, FishingFury.com, ESPN Outdoors and countless others that have embedded the youtube video onto their sites. A special thank you; Nate Tessler - Fish Biologist and Bass Pro Aquarist, Travis Hartman - ODNR Fish Biologist, Rob Zoller & family - Owner Riverfront Marina & Campgrounds, Waco Brown - Manager Fremont Ohio Wal Mart, Jim Wendt - Owner Jim's Taxidermy, Matt Manning, Gannett Journalist, Steve Pollick - Outdoor writer & journalist, Andrew Ragas - Owner Fishing-Headquarters.com. USGS; The invasive catch was officially reported to the USGS and it's entry can be seen at the link below.
Wow man! What a catch!
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