Czech extreme angler Jakub Vagner has set the new world record by catching the biggest fish on a rod, specifically the Indian catfish ("goonch"), daily Mlada fronta Dnes (MfD) writes yesterday.
Goonch or devil's catfish as it is called by Indian natives allegedly eats the remnants of corpses thrown into rivers by Indians in keeping with local habits, MfD writes.
However, the goonch has allegedly also attacked some living people, it adds.
Hence the tremendous fear felt by natives when encountering it, MfD writes.
"As they are afraid of the fish, they hunt it with dynamite to have the food," Vagner said.
Vagner has caught the fish eating human flesh on a rod on his expedition, setting a world record, MfD writes.
As the catfish (Bagarius yarrelli) weighed 87 kilograms, it is the heaviest fish caught on a rod, MfD writes.
Vagner has thus defeated his own world record from 2009 when he caught a fish weighing 75 kilograms.
"We knew about the fish, we saw it during our past expedition," Vagner is quoted as saying.
"We tried to into a nine-metre hole and when we were roughly half way through it, some fish seemed to be laying on boulders at the bottom," Vagner said.
"However, the boulders themselves then moved and these were two giant catfish," he added.
At that time, he managed to catch the smaller one, but he knew that the bigger "was waiting for him," Vagner said.
Natural scientists know little about the life of goonch as it lives in big depths and it is very difficult to find it, MfD writes.
Vagner, 31, focuses on the largest and rarest fish in very remote regions of the world. He has featured in the televised series Fish Warrior, shown on National Geographic Channel.
from jeffrey olds
WOW! that's a bigun.
June 2, 2012 at 8:15am | Report Abuse
from james romo
I wanna go noodle one
June 8, 2012 at 8:39pm | Report Abuse
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