At first, Benjamin believed he had hooked into a large tree. Then his pole began to jiggle.
There is nothing on earth as mysterious as the unexplored sea and underwater worlds that we still have so much to discover.
These fishermen learned this the hard way when they drew a potentially record-breaking catfish from the water, which awed the onlookers.
This does not even appear to be from our planet.
A tremendous catch
It was a typical day for the fisherman Benjamin Gründer.
Until an extraordinary event occurred.
During a fishing trip on the River Po in Italy, Gründer hooked something that he could tell felt unusual.
However, he could not have imagined the enormous catfish he ended up catching.
Fishing struggle
Gründer initially believed he had hooked a tree because he had never encountered a fish with such strength.
The fisherman assumed he had caught a log or another inanimate object because he had no idea what could be exerting such force on his fishing pole.
He was in error.
He kept reeling.
Just in case he encountered the largest fish he had ever had the opportunity to catch. When he saw the fish move, he realized he had caught something exceptional.
Gründer reeled in a 9-foot, 300-pound catfish in just 45 minutes, despite the fact that it would have taken hours.
When he finally reeled in the fish, he couldn’t believe his eyes; the fish was so large that many believed it to be a record.
Only if he had weighed it; I suppose we’ll never know for sure, but it appears to be the case.
If you ask me, Gründer’s catfish appears to weigh significantly more than 300 pounds, but you be the judge.
The largest catfish ever recorded was the Mekong giant catfish at 9 feet and 646 pounds, and Gründer’s appears to be as large or larger.
In 2005, two Thai fishermen fishing near their village on the Mekong River caught a 9-foot, nearly 700-pound catfish that required more than an hour to reel in.
It is the largest freshwater fish ever recorded, according to experts.
Do you think Gründer’s looks bigger?
I’d say it’s close, but it’s incredibly difficult to tell. Thankfully, they captured images of Gründer’s catfish, or else people would have never believed this enormous fish existed.
This is not the only enormous catfish that the expert fisherman has caught.
His Instagram is brimming with them.
Check out Benjamin Gründer’s social media to see more of his incredible catches, but the sizes of many of them are unknown.
Constantly a catch, never a keeper
Because he catches and releases the fish, you can’t be too angry with him.
The discovery of these fish in murky lakes and rivers makes you wonder what else could be lurking there, but if you’re swimming in them this summer, you’d probably rather not know…