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An outdoors blogger on Yahoo! Sports has recounted the tale of how a British fisherman finally caught his long-sought albino catfish and landed a world record in the process.
Writer David Strege, who writes for GrindTV.com, wrote about Bernie Campbell’s quest to catch a rare albino wels catfish. The Brit finally caught the elusive fish on the River Erbo near Barcelona, Spain, with a group called CatMaster Tours.
“We have had two or three big albino catfish out of the river, but none that has topped 200 pounds,” expert catfish angler and guide John Deakin of CatMaster Tours told the U.K. Daily Mail. “Albino catfish of that size are very rare indeed. This is the biggest we’ve ever seen. It was a very special fish.”
Campbell, 54, was fishing with his son Gary when he hooked into the beast, using special pellets for bait and 1,800 feet of super-strength fishing line.
“When I got the fish closer to the shore and I saw it was white, I couldn’t believe it,” Campbell told the Daily Mail. “It was so strong it nearly pulled me in on four separate occasions.”
After about 30 minutes or so, Campbell pulled the monster fish into shore where it was weighed, photographed, and released.
“I was absolutely shattered [read: exhausted] when I landed it, but the feeling was unbelievable. It was a huge fish, but when we got it on the scales I couldn’t believe what I was seeing.
“It was my first albino, and it was a world record.”
John Deakin, an expert catfish angler from Catmaster Tours who organised the trip, said: ‘We have had two or three big albino catfish out of the river but none that have topped 200lbs.
‘Albino catfish of that size are very rare indeed. This is the biggest we’ve ever seen.
‘It was a very special fish.’
