A Giant Fishy Tale

Have you wondered what   if you were tired   fishing the whole day without getting a single catch despite several attempts since dawn.  And  when you   have   finally called the shutters and just about to do a bag pack when you   feel something unbelievable happening   underwater. All of a sudden you realize that   you are unable to pull your net back.  A cold shiver runs down your spine to only make you realize that you have the biggest catch of the day. That was the same feeling David Kent  a retired Royal Navy Officer  experienced after  landing on the shores with a heavy monster in tow. You would be surprised to know that he had ended up catching a giant Mekong Cat fish   at the time when he almost gave up hopes  on getting  his dues from the lake  in which he had  spent so much time and energy.

The Mekong giant catfish or giant carp (Pangasius family) is perhaps the most interesting and most threatened species in the Mekong River. Martin David Kent required only an hour to land a 260-pound huge cat fish   but it took more than seven months   for the impressive catch to  get a nod from the world records. Even the International Game Fish Association took  an unusually long authentication period . The fish was almost 7ft in length . The  trick that helped Kent to  get the wonder catch was a tiny piece of corn he had tied in his net to lure  the sea creatures . The fish might have been really  hungry to have gone in for such a  meager  compensation. Kent reminisced the whole  episode as  a struggle for almost 55 minutes  and his tryst of even getting into the water to have kept pace with the massive force and pull  of the giant fish. It took Kent and two other men to get the 18 and half stony creature  monster  for a  snap  to prove the world that it was not a mere fishy tale. As Kent had struggled hard to bring the fish  towards the bank and into the net. When Kent checked up the previous world records in the category  found to his pleasant surprise that he had indeed shattered the  earlier records by a  few distance. And he was proud to have caught the biggest daddy of the species after a hard day in the water.

Kent was actually on a holiday with his wife when he decided to do some fishing in the nearby  lake in Krabi, Thailand. The Mekong Cat Fish is  one of the  endangered species. The Mekong Cat fish also holds the world record for the largest  fresh water fish. Although a happy tale to start with ended on a sad note as desperate attempts to save the fish proved futile even after releasing it back to the water. The cat fish died and was then eaten by the local villagers.

    Gillhams Fishing Resort  owner Stuart Gillham are not new to world records as they hold  for one caught in 2008   weighed 184 pounds another, weighed 191 in  2009. Gillham said there are fish in his lake that exceed 300 pounds and that he has recorded growth rates among his fish of more than 50 pounds per year.

The Largest Cat Fish measured 7ft in length and weighed 260lb and was set by a Mekong giant fish which was procured by David Kent   at Gillhams Fishing Resort  in Krabi, Thailand on June 17,2011