9 foot, 230+lb Wells Catfish caught in Spain

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typical sun article - if the fish is 9ft so is the guy .
Also the biggest wels was a bit under 17ft and close to 700pounds - see "Tank busters" book.
they average 10ft in russia (or ukraine) less in italy and spain where most of the sport fishing is done.
in uk due to cold rarely over 3ft.
 
it would also depend on the guys equipment he used to bring it in if you have light line naturally you are goin to have to play the fish with a loose drag to keep from breaking line I know even here where I live I fish teh mississippi all the time for some big blue catfish the I beleave current world record blue catfish was caught just up the highway from me a few miles so I use heavy tackle never use any line under 100 pound test braid and I make my own leaders that are up to 300 lb test .... It really is a pain though if I ever get hung up trieing to break the line is a pain but I have lost many fish that have broke my line
 
Awesome :D:D:D
 
Most of caught that sucker on cable or rope - I couldn't imagine a fish like that wearing out after 15 minutes -either that or just used to being caught at that age. lol he knows the drill - free ride and lunch, all he's gotta do is pose for a picture or two.
 
jprp, those stories of 17 feet are nothing but BS. The longest confirmed wels on record was "only" 2,78 m, and the heavies one, which was only 2,52 m weighed 152 kg. Both were, like most other exeptionally large specimens caught in the italian Po Delta. A hypothetical 17 wels would weigh much more than only 700 pounds but around 800-1000 kg or even more.
And no, they don´t average 10 feet at Russia. I have seen some photos of very large wels from Russia, but they were far away from average. I have also read reports from fishermen which caught wels in Russia, and the wrote too that the wels do well there, but there was nothing about 3 m and more.
Wels are not really weak fighters, they can give a very hard fight. But this specimen on the photo (and it is NEVER 9 feet long) seems to be extremely fat. Some wels in Italy have completely stopped to hunt and only eat halibut pellets from anglers, and they sometimes become really highly obese.
 
Really cool fish, I'm just glad to see he got put back in the river.
 
Acheloos;3637423; said:
jprp, those stories of 17 feet are nothing but BS. The longest confirmed wels on record was "only" 2,78 m, and the heavies one, which was only 2,52 m weighed 152 kg. Both were, like most other exeptionally large specimens caught in the italian Po Delta. A hypothetical 17 wels would weigh much more than only 700 pounds but around 800-1000 kg or even more.
And no, they don´t average 10 feet at Russia. I have seen some photos of very large wels from Russia, but they were far away from average. I have also read reports from fishermen which caught wels in Russia, and the wrote too that the wels do well there, but there was nothing about 3 m and more.
Wels are not really weak fighters, they can give a very hard fight. But this specimen on the photo (and it is NEVER 9 feet long) seems to be extremely fat. Some wels in Italy have completely stopped to hunt and only eat halibut pellets from anglers, and they sometimes become really highly obese.
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record is quoted in burgess cat fish atlas-which is the most authoritive book i have ever found also i have seen ducumentry of dozens of wels around one east german dam that were all 3m+
also watched another documentry that showed 18th century monastic illustrations of huge wels several times the length of a man
there are also lots of pics on fishing sites with as many as seven guys in a line holding a single fish-allow 20-24in each shoulder width and you get an idea of length
the fish at the start of the thread is way smaller than quoted though
 
Even the most authoritative books seems sadly not always a good source at all, because many of the authors just copied old data without own research. I really highly doubt that the wels you have seen were more than 3 m, especially in Germany. I look for many years for reports and photos of extremely large wels and have already collected many dozens of giant wels. Actually none of them was undoubtly more than 3m. I found one single photo of a wels from Kasakstan, which was allegedly over 3m. The wels on the photo is very large, but much of it is still in the water and the rest is hard to estimate, but it doesn´t seem to be much bigger than the confirmed specimens around 2,70-2,80 m.
And old illustrations are by far not a good source for sizes.
 
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