23-year-old pastry chef Paul Marichal, who has been fishing as a hobby for only three years, told about his most unusual fishing trip, writes the publication “Bild”.
“I was fishing with my friend William in the Ognon river near Sauvagney,” he says.
The river separates the Haute-Saône and Doubs regions in Eastern France and is considered an excellent spot for catching catfish, pike, and perch.
“Something bit my hook. I immediately noticed it was something big. It took about 20 minutes to reel it in. A giant catfish. Its length was 2.30 meters,” the guy recounted.
His friend immediately photographed it. The two young fishermen proudly showed off their catch to the camera.
And then they noticed another strange thing: there was something big in the fish’s mouth.
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“We pulled an entire bird out of the fish. It had already started to decompose,” Paul said.
Renowned catfish fishing expert Stefan Seuß, who himself caught a record-breaking 2.81-meter long fish in the Po River in Italy three years ago, commented on the incident: “It could have been a waterfowl, perhaps a duck. There’s nothing unusual here, as catfish are considered omnivores.”
S. Seuß has even pulled nutria out of catfish. And in Heidelberg, a catfish even choked on a volleyball, so passers-by had to rescue it.
This fish’s hunting strategy is similar to a crocodile’s. A catfish eats nothing for two weeks, and then one whole waterfowl is enough to keep it full for a long time.
After the two Frenchmen pulled out their fish and took photos, they released the fish back into the water.
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“We always do that when we catch a big fish,” Paul explained.
