British Angler Lands `'Monster,' 8ft 226lbs Catfish!!!!!!!

by **J The Kidd** Fri Oct 10, 2008 11:52 pm

A British angler is celebrating after landing one of the biggest freshwater fishes ever caught in Europe.

Alan Melhuish spent just half an hour reeling in a catfish weighing more than 16 stone on the River Ebro near Barcelona.

The 61-year-old was nearing the end of a week-long fishing trip when he hooked the 8-foot monster.

Mr Melhuish, a coroners assistant from Weston-Super-Mare, Somerset,
said: 'I was standing on a pontoon and I could tell it was big.

'It ripped the line and must have raced 40 metres up the river. It took
me half-an-hour to to get it in and I could tell it was a decent size.

'I had to use all my strength to stop myself from being pulled off the pontoon into the river.

'When I got it into the shallows my son-in-law went down to have a look and he told me it was massive.

British Angler Lands `'Monster,' 8ft 226lbs Catfish!!!!!!! FUCKYOUPAYMEMOSTUNDERRATEDOVERWORKEDUNDERPAID

'When the scales went past the 200 mark and up to 226lbs I knew it was the fish of a lifetime.

'Apparently there was another fish caught in Spain that weighed exactly the same, but I'm not sure if it was recorded properly.'

The biggest freshwater fish ever caught in Europe was a catfish that tipped the scales at 17 stone in Italy.