British drilling engineer Dean McEwan, 36, caught 30 stone catfish, the equivalent of 190.5 kg. Was touring Thailand and suffered an hour and a half hunting and fishing.
The giant catfish, a species of Pangasianodon gigas, is also known as the giant catfish. This species, which was entered in the list in 2003 as “endangered” by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is typical of the Mekong River, which crosses Southeast Asia, and is at risk of extinction.
The engineer told the BNPS news agency that after fighting for an hour and a half and catching a catfish, he took a typical photo of a fisherman showing off his accomplishments and then put the animal back into the water. “It was really an ability test.”
The giant Mekong catfish, according to information from the Guinness Book, is the largest freshwater fish in the world. To date, the record holder is a resident of Thailand, who caught a fish weighing 293 kilograms in 2005.
Three men join Dean MacEwan in helping him with the daunting task of catching the animal. The giant catfish was caught in the Palm Tree Lagoon, located in the city of Ratchaburi. It was necessary to cast a large net in order to catch one of the largest fish in the world.
To BNPS, the engineer said the hunt takes place around noon local time. It was hot at the moment and he had to take his eyes off the float for a while when he started to hear the line coming out of his rod reel. Immediately, he raised the stick and leaned on his body to start the fight which resulted in the big fish being caught. “I’ve caught some catfish before, so I knew what I was getting into.”
British expat Tim Webb, in charge of the Palm Tree Lagoon fisheries, said the fish was the largest catfish ever caught in the lagoon and likely in Thailand. Even with no official record that could prove this feat, Webb claims that it was “certainly the largest catfish ever caught by a Briton”.
