Interesting Jau pic find

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necrocanis

Catfish God
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Oct 10, 2005
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Hey all I'm posting this up even though I debated it due to the nature of the pics. Please be advised that the pics below are of dead fish and contain blood.

With that out of the way I managed to find some pictures of Jau that seems a bit larger than the recognized world record which stands at 109 lbs. I remember reading documents years ago that stated they were collected over 400 lbs in the late 1800s. Also seems larger than PC max size of 55".

This just illustrates that with these large Amazonian catfish the data says one thing but they are capable of who knows what size or age.
Someone just needs to grow one out on a steady diet and clean water ;). Although from most pics I've seen they love muddy river water haha.

At first I was ready to dismiss this as forced perspective but getting two different views and seeing the guy is lined up using references in the picture you can see that the perspective is not forced much if any at all. Second one looks huge as well but not as big as the one hanging.

Again apologies for a bit of gore but the intent is education. These fish get massive. As much as I wish that fish was still alive swimming there I know it probably went to feed the people in that family/town

Fishing method was long line. I should have save the location info as well......I can probably find it again
Screenshot_20200122-161147.pngScreenshot_20200122-161138.png
 
Btw I had no choice but to screenshot as it was shared on a strange app lol.
 
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Caught in the Guavio River in Columbia. :).


Also found some other interesting pics

This jau along with a boatload of other catfish species is from a totally different river.
Screenshot_20200122-205134.png

Hmmmm
Screenshot_20200122-205749.png

This RTC seems large :) thought I'd share this as well.

Screenshot_20200122-210058.pngScreenshot_20200122-210052.png
 
The jau at Shedd in Chicago is allegedly around 20 years old and 5'-6' long. There is a video with it in the behind the scenes by Paul Cuffaro that was used in a thread or two here on MFK as well. I think I cited it too in my jau thread.

Ours are little kittens at only a bit over 3' by 3-4 inches, one's 11 years old, the other 7. I am really tired of their fighting and am ready to part with one. Maybe the new SeaQuest Aquarium in Ft. Lauderdale will buy it.
 
Spending time with a lot of anglers who fished in the Amazon ranges. You soon realise that the rod and line records mean nothing on 90% of the fish out there. I know of 5 jau that have been caught over the world igf records, one last week even. 2 friends have had larger jau. Again for rtc, a 160lb one was caught in Suriname the week before I arrived.

The mean reason why they are not counted for, is the angler will not kill the fish to take back into the city’s to be weighed. Which, even myself. I’d rather release it, then have a piece of paper.
 
Spending time with a lot of anglers who fished in the Amazon ranges. You soon realise that the rod and line records mean nothing on 90% of the fish out there. I know of 5 jau that have been caught over the world igf records, one last week even. 2 friends have had larger jau. Again for rtc, a 160lb one was caught in Suriname the week before I arrived.

The mean reason why they are not counted for, is the angler will not kill the fish to take back into the city’s to be weighed. Which, even myself. I’d rather release it, then have a piece of paper.

I love that
 
I’d also like to add. A friend who runs a lot of trips world wide caught a huge lau lau in Suriname touching the world record. I shall find a picture. Again, only estimated weights.
 
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Those are some absolute hogs! Jau are probably my favourite catfish.

As for world records; there is a page called Fishing-Worldrecords that posts up non-official world record fish and doesn't require the fish to be killed or has such strict rules as the IGFA for instance. Of course this means that some of the measurements are a bit sketchy but it allows for fish like the ones posted here to claim records.

Example for the Jau: http://www.fishing-worldrecords.com/scientificname/Zungaro zungaro/show
 
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