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Fisherman potentially breaks records reeling in incredible 9-foot-long catfish
Benjamin assumed he'd just hooked into a big tree at first. Then his pole started to bounce.
Randy Aragon
07.14.22

There’s nothing on earth quite as mysterious as the undiscovered sea and underwater worlds that we have so much to learn about.

These fishermen learned that first-hand when they pulled a potentially record-breaking catfish out of the water that had people in awe.

This doesn’t even look like something from our planet.

A massive catch

It was just another ordinary day for fisherman Benjamin Gründer.

Until something extraordinary happened.

While on a fishing trip to River Po, Italy, Gründer caught his hook in something that he could just tell felt different.

Only, he could have never imagined the gigantic catfish that he ended up reeling in.

Fighting the fish

Gründer initially thought he had caught his hook into a tree because no fish he’d ever encountered was this strong.

With no idea what could be exerting this kind of force onto his fishing pole, the fisherman assumed he had snagged a log or some other inanimate object.

He was wrong.

He kept reeling.

Just in case he was, indeed, encountering the biggest fish he’d ever had the chance to catch. That’s when he saw the fish move and knew he had caught something special.

You’d think a 9-foot, approximately 300 lb catfish would take hours to real in, but Gründer did in just 45 minutes

When he finally pulled the fish in he couldn’t believe his eyes, the fish was so big many people thought it had to be some kind of record.

Only if he would have weighed it, I guess we’ll never know for certain but it sure looks that way.

YouTube - Benjamin Gründer
Source:
YouTube - Benjamin Gründer

Honestly, if you ask me, Gründer’s catfish looks like it weighs much more than 300 pounds, but you can be the judge.

The biggest catfish ever recorded was the Mekong giant catfish at 9-ft, 646 lbs, and side-by-side Gründer’s looks just as big or bigger

That’s right, back in 2005, two fishermen were fishing the Mekong river by their village in Thailand, when they caught a 9 ft, almost 700-pound catfish that took over an hour to real in.

Experts say it’s the largest freshwater fish ever recorded.

Do you think Gründer’s looks bigger?

I’d say it’s close but it’s really hard to tell, luckily they got pictures of Gründer’s catfish, or people may never have believed this ginormous fish existed.

This isn’t the only massive catfish the expert fisherman has pulled in.

His Instagram is full of them.

To see more of Benjamin Gründer’s incredible catches be sure to check out his social media but how big many of them are remains a mystery.

Always a catch, never a keeper

This is because he catches and releases the fish, which you really can’t be mad at.

Seeing fish like this discovered in the mirky waters of lakes and rivers really makes you think about what else could be out there, but if you’re swimming in them this summer, you’d probably rather not know…

See this fisherman reel in one of the most massive catfish in the video below!

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