My name is jeremy wade.
I'm an explorer, a biologist, and a fisherman.
Look at this!
There it is!
I've caught many extraordinary fish from rivers all around the world... Oh, oh, oh!
Fish that can be described as real monsters.
Normally i have to travel halfway 'round the world to find my quarry... Here we go!
The biggest, some would say baddest, freshwater fish on the planet.
It's not often i hear of a river monster in my own backyard...
But this is exactly what's happened.
A report in a german newspaper says swimmers are being attacked
In a lake outside berlin.
This isn't a far-Off, exotic place.
A river monster within 10 miles of a 21st-Century european capital...
Can it really be true?
It's an opportunity not to be missed.
I'm already packing my equipment.
I have my suspicions as to the identity of the culprit, and if i'm right,
It's a fish with a monstrous reputation, chronicled since medieval times.
There it is! There it is! There it is!
The wels is europe's largest freshwater fish, capable of reaching over 200 pounds.
I've been doing some research into this predatory member of the catfish family,
And i'm finding that ever since records began, europe seems to have had
Its very own well-Documented freshwater man-Eater.
It appears the wels catfish is actually no stranger to making front-Page news.
There are stories about this species going back literally for centuries
Portraying it as a man-Eating monster.
I've been doing a bit of research.
Quite frankly, i had no idea it had such a reputation.
Back in the 1500s, a human head and a hand with a gold ring
Was found inside the stomach.
1630, the corpse of a 7-Year-Old child, body of a woman, two girls devoured.
It just goes on and on.
But all this is just so tantalizing.
There are no hard facts and figures
Unless, you know, you count something like that.
If that was the equivalent of your front-Page story in the 16th century,
Would you go in the water?
It would be too easy to dismiss these tales as the work of superstitious,
Unscientific medieval minds.
Attacks and human body parts turning up in wels' stomachs
Have been reported across eastern europe, from russia to poland, through the ages
Right up to the present day.
I recently came across this report in a german newspaper of swimmers in a lake
Being attacked by what is thought to be a large wels catfish.
I'm on my way to germany to investigate these attacks
And maybe solve the mystery of a serial killer
With its roots in europe's medieval past.
Germany is at the forefront of urban expansion.
Although steeped in history, it is now coated in glass and steel,
Hardly the place for a man-Eating monster.
Schlachtensee is a lake just 10 minutes from berlin's city center,
And it's just become germany's very own loch ness.
This is where the attacks are happening.
Over a mile long and up to 700 feet across,
The lake was formed in the last ice age.
These cold waters have always been a refuge for wels catfish,
And falling to over 25 feet in places,
It's plenty deep enough to hide an absolute monster.
The attacks were localized, concentrated in two small areas.
Strangely, areas... According to the local fishermen...
Not traditionally the places to hunt for wels.
So, just what happened?
I'm going to ask one of the victims, jonas fei.
What exactly did you do when you came down that day?
Maybe two or three months ago, i was swimming 10 or 20 seconds out on the lake.
Suddenly, something big bit me.
I don't know what it was, but it was a very big shock for me... Pain and shock.
It hurts very much, of course.
Almost exactly here?
Yes, right here.
In a freshwater lake so far from the sea, the last thing you would expect
Is to get attacked by a fish.
It's just not supposed to happen.
Being bitten by a wels is to experience the power of two hard plates
Packed with hundreds of needle-Sharp teeth.
Huge jaw muscles create a crushing force.
A bite is like being grabbed by a vise covered in coarse sandpaper.
Before this happened, you used to quite enjoy coming here.
Of course.
Every day i would swim in here, but after that, yeah, i don't swim again.
Normally about 100 or 200 people are swimming here.
So, definitely people have been put off, you think?
Yes, yes. Of course. Yeah?
But jonas wasn't the only victim.
In almost the identical place, katerina and her friend clara had an encounter
That has spooked them out of the water for good.
Just on a normal summer day, and we wanted to swim a little bit and meet friends,
So we went to the lake.
We were swimming in the water, just treading water and talking to each other,
And there was something swimming around our legs, but we couldn't really define it.
I think it was like a snake in the water.
Yeah.
Then, suddenly... There was something on my leg.
Then there was a... Wound on my leg.
There was blood.
There were two parts... That part here, and the other one on the other side.
I went to the hospital with my mother.
They reacted really shocked, the doctors, because they've never seen
Anything like that before.
And there were other attacks, the same pattern each time...
Swimmers bitten on their legs, sent terrified out of the water, bleeding.
Will these 21st-Century attacks prove
That this european river monster is no medieval myth?
What i want to find out is what provoked these attacks,
And are wels catfish really capable of what they stand accused of?
Let's have this.
To find out what's going on below, i'm working with my cameraman, simon,
And a mini submarine.
We have also enlisted the help of dr. Christian wolter from the berlin fisheries
To give me an expert opinion.
We're here to examine the scene of the crime
And see whether knowledge of the biology of the wels
Could explain what exactly happened to trigger such aggression.
That's about 10 meters out, isn't that?
That is about where the boy said he was attacked.
What we could do is take it down there... Just over a meter.
Yeah. You're straight in weed at a meter depth.
Yeah. That's okay.
I'd have thought you'd be out of your depth.
You could stand up in that water, couldn't you, almost? Yeah.
So, it's weedy and shallow, but for dr. Wolter,
This is just the information he needs to understand what is going on.
The wels were just doing what every parent does... Protecting their offspring.
The swimmers had trespassed into their nursery.
So, is there anything special or unusual about where they took bites, do you think?
It's a common spawning place.
That's why it might be the reason why it occurred so close to the bank.
The place that we've heard about the attacks happening,
That would be a potential spawning place?
Catfish is a plant spawner.
They build nests in the plants where they lay their egg,
And then they guard in there.
Then, it's the only explanation that it was during the breeding time
That they had the nests there, were guarding the nest,
And attacked something which comes too close.
For this particular catfish, it was a huge stress to guard the nest
And have all those swimmers around.
So it was actually a provoked attack.
It was protecting the nest.
Freshwater crayfish and other fish will eat eggs from an unguarded nest.
To prevent this, the male catfish sits over its 300,000 yellow eggs,
Protecting them from all comers, large or small.
There are two essential qualities that make a man-Eater.
Wels catfish certainly have the attitude, but do they have the capacity?
Do they literally have the stomach for the job?
As a younger angler, i caught smaller wels, but how big do they need to get
To pose a serious threat to a human?
There's no point fishing over the attack sites.
Breeding is over.
I've hooked up with local fisherman hoss statugy.
He knows where the wels are likely to be now.
Me too.
But first, we've got to get over the language barrier.
Yeah. Um... Um... Um. Oh, hey, right!
Ah! Oh, i understand!
He's a butcher. Okay.
So now just fishing. Fishing?
Huh? Right.
Okay.
One glove, no good. Not enough.
Always with two.
One glove, the fish can twist and twist you around.
So we have two gloves.
Finally, with the best spots pinpointed, we want to start fishing at dusk.
So, this is the place to fish.
Wels are night stalkers.
Their bodies are bulging with sensory receptors.
The lateral line that all fish have allows them to sense water vibrations,
But catfish also have extra receptors in their skin.
Those tentacles are more than just feelers.
They can taste the water for slight chemical changes,
Any clue that leads them to a meal, which can be anything from fish to crustaceans,
Even water birds.
When you're up against these super senses, fishing gear for wels needs to be tough,
But you also need a bit of delicacy.
I've got very strong, 80-Kilo breaking strain,
Braided line there, so you can literally just hang on.
You don't have to let them take any line at all.
You just hang on and try and stop them getting anywhere near that wood.
Float the slides, but only up as... Whoops... Only up as far as the knot.
Going down to a fairly big single hook.
And something on that hook that smells tasty, so a dead fish as bait
Should hopefully draw a large catfish in.
The schlachtensee catfish prove elusive, but my trip has not been wasted.
I have confirmed that these fish have an aggressive attitude.
It seems that these attacks in berlin weren't predatory in their intent
But defensive, territorial behavior at breeding time, but that's actually academic
As far as the victims were concerned.
They came away with bleeding wounds on their legs,
Which underlines the chilling truth... A large wels catfish
Has both the size and the fearlessness to be a potential man-Eater.
If there's one place where i'm gonna find out just how big the wels catfish grows
And how potentially dangerous it is, it's here, the rio ebro in northern spain.
The fish was introduced... It's been here a little more than 30 years,
But in that time, you know, they're catching fish bigger than i am.
I mean, they're growing massive.
So, although part of me is a little bit dubious about coming here
Because it is an artificial situation, i'm also quite excited because i think
There's a very good chance that, in the next few days,
I'm gonna see a seriously big fish on the end of my line.
Northern spain, the river ebro.
In 1974, a german scientist came here and released some wels into this river.
Ever since, not only have they grown in numbers but also in size.
The wels has become spain's very own frankenstein monster.
There are three reasons why the wels catfish are growing so big in this river.
It's a mixture of man-Made and natural.
For a start, you've got three of these huge dams,
And it just means there's so much more water, more space for the fish to live in.
On top of that, this water is hot.
The fish, being a cold-Blooded animal,
Can just feed and grow for more months of the year
Than they do in eastern europe and in berlin.
This place was stuffed with fish anyway, particularly carp.
The anglers are coming in.
They're throwing in huge amounts of bait
And just sending the whole system into hyperdrive.
This river has a policy of catch and release, so every year, the biggest fish
Are even bigger than the year before.
Monsters of over 200 pounds already prowl these waters.
Wels can live to 80 years.
Such fish are a massive lure to fishermen from all over the world.
To test just how voracious these catfish are,
I head into one of the ebro's swollen tributaries.
My guide tells me the fish are lurking right in at the margins.
They're waiting to ambush fish in the current
And also to grab anything that drops in from the banks.
Very energetic, active fishing that's quite precise, as well.
On the move, not sitting around, waiting, and it's the kind of fishing
Where you're left in no doubt if you've got a bite.
You're gonna see it, feel it, hear it, as something just launches itself at this
And sort of wrenches on the rod.
Ah!
Yes, yes, yes, yes!
We're going downstream. Watch the oar.
All right.
Aah!
Gone. Gone, gone, gone, gone. Hey.
I'm not doing very well.
Everything's happening too quickly.
This is the last place i'd expect to find a fat, wallowing catfish,
But it shows how you can misjudge these guys.
I'm learning that there's more to wels' behavior than i thought.
Aah! Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!
Open the reel! Open the reel!
Off, off, off, off, off. It's off again.
Aah!
It's off!
Literally took within about a second
Of the lure hitting the water about 6 inches from the bank.
This water is cracking along at such a rate.
This is like a fast, running pace.
That's the place.
Let it sink a little bit and then twitch a little bit.
You see that? That's coming direct.
The fish is in the water, we let it sink, and pow.
Absolutely.
Two strikes on that fish. Damn!
The wels have made themselves totally at home here, not just in the main channels
But throughout the whole river system.
As apex predators, they have a confidence that i'm about to witness firsthand.
These fish are scared of nothing.
Look at this.
That's a big fish.
I could almost reach down and grab its mouth.
Do you have a calamari?
There's a catfish here. It's big.
It's 140 pounds, plus.
It is two feet beneath me.
The bank goes down here. I am looking into its mouth.
I could almost reach down and touch it.
Well, the fish has backed off. I think he could see me.
I'm gonna throw this really hard.
No reaction. No reaction.
The fish is just melting away backwards.
This is a really rare sight.
That fish is 7 foot long, it's about 140 pounds, at least,
And it was in the margins, and i could see the whole fish.
There it is.
That's a sight. That is a rare sight.
That is a big fish.
If i got down on my knees, then, i could have patted him on the head.
Mouth like that, right underneath me.
And looking down on its back, this wonderful, light camo pattern,
This disruptive sort of black and white.
Threw a stone to see if there would be a reaction.
No.
He just reversed back, and then under the boat and away.
I really like seeing fish like that.
It's fantastic. Really good.
Any other fish would have been spooked off by that stone.
It would have disappeared in a flash.
And that guy is not even a really big one.
I'm on the banks of the river ebro in spain hunting down giant wels catfish.
They're estimated to put on up to 10 pounds a year.
If that's true, it won't be long before an ebro wels
Reaches the man-Eating proportions of medieval folklore.
If i'm after a man-Eater, i need to catch, at the very least, a man-Sized fish...
One that falls on the fat side of 150 pounds.
It's time to rig up.
Rather than casting, we drop our baits over 100 yards out,
Just short of the sunken trees along the flooded river channel.
Take up the slack.
Then, with the high-Tech alarms set, i can enjoy the spanish sun.
And now we wait.
This is not my preferred fishing technique.
I like to feel the line be in contact with the bait,
But wels are not delicate feeders, and, besides, it's hot here...
Yes. Here, here!
And it's about to get hotter.
That's taking line, that's taking line.
That's taking line.
This is my first supersized spanish wels, and, immediately, it feels seriously big.
This is physical, physical stuff.
A serious burst from that fish when it first took.
It's already taking line on us.
Stick it out.
My forearm is almost cramping up.
It's a good size.
Have you got the fish?
I did get it.
Feels like... Yeah. He was moving up the side.
These spanish wels are hunting in broad daylight.
They really are breaking their programming.
And these fish even seem used to being handled.
My first fish is 140 pounds and measures 6 foot, 9 inches.
If these fish are putting on 10 pounds a year,
Then, in 20 years, this already massive creature could weigh as much as 340 pounds,
More than double its present size.
And if they do live until 80 years, i'll let you do the maths.
The only thing that will restrict them is food, but there is one food supply here
That is in huge quantities... Other catfish.
The wels is not just a man-Eater.
It's a cannibal.
Just getting sort of a cool scientific look at this animal.
I mean, the first thing, obviously the thing to do,
Start at the business end... The head.
I mean, the main thing is just this very, very wide mouth
About 10 inches across on this animal, and you've got needlelike teeth.
They are sharp, as well.
You put your hand in there, and they'll draw blood.
But in terms of getting a grip, just perfect.
If they clamp down tight with those sort of jaw muscles,
You're not gonna get out of that.
They're just purpose-Built for lurking on the bottom
And grabbing stuff that comes above them,
And they're gonna know that stuff is there, the prey,
Because their eyes are on top of their head,
But more to the point, they've got these, and these are just, you know...
This is like sort of extra-Sensory perception.
You can tell what's going on in the water.
These will pick up vibrations and also chemicals in very, very sensitive,
Very small quantities, in both cases.
On the side, you've got... Very pronounced on this animal... The lateral line,
And this is their super organ, the super-Touch organ.
It just picks up vibrations in the water, you know,
Often, again, at a very low level.
And, also, you can see here these sort of marks on the skin.
Now, i think these are probably wounds from another fish,
Possibly when this fish was spawning,
And, you know, they got a little bit too rough,
A little bit sort of over-Enthusiastic.
Stomach here. There's the vent there.
So, actually, if it swallows something...
This fish could potentially swallow something that long.
It goes to the back of the throat, which is here.
It opens up this sort of sphincter muscle there,
And it could swallow something about two foot long.
So, no problem accommodating those medieval accounts of babies and small children
In the belly of the beast.
It looks like wels catfish can swallow prey
Roughly a third of their own body length,
So if these fish in the ebro keep on growing,
It's possible that they could reach a size
Where they will have man-Eating potential.
Fact is following close on the heels of what was once thought to be fiction.
Looking at this fish, it is the perfect predator.
I mean, they do eat anything... Literally anything...
But they are perfectly equipped to predate and also to come from underneath.
You know, that is just... A mouth on the end of a solid, sinuous piece of muscle.
Anyway, i can't hold him much longer.
Wels, like all catfish, could live quite a long time out of water
If kept cool and wet.
This guy seems quite reluctant to leave.
Shall i leave him there?
A nice rub on his belly.
In a split second, the fish turns.
I'm just quick enough to escape.
That was the first catfish attack on a human on-Camera.
I was just wondering, "is he gonna move?"
And he did sort of double 'round.
And i have heard stories of them actually having a bite
Of somebody who's caught them.
So, i thought, "that's not gonna happen to me."
There's no mark there, there's no mark there.
But it has happened.
I fish on into darkness, and i get another surprise.
It's just pulled me on my ass.
Fish on.
Me pulled towards the water.
I thought i was gonna go in there.
There's nothing...
That's a sizeable fish, sizeable fish.
With so many fishermen around, the only inconvenience these fish suffer
For their midnight feasts is a little bit of manhandling.
Imagine being in a river at night
With one of these things swimming around your legs.
I don't know how big it is yet. I can see it's big.
Right? Yep.
148, i think.
147. 147.
How wide?
It's about nine inches, isn't it?
Mm-Hmm.
This fish is almost as heavy as i am.
I mean, it is... This is quite a monstrous beast.
And the power, as well... I felt the power.
The thing nearly pulled me in the river.
So, you know, definitely a fierce predatory animal, and some of these stories
About them maybe attacking swimmers... I don't know.
I can believe them now having actually seen
The size of one of these things actually up close.
I'm still short of my target 150-Pound beast.
These creatures really are ugly out of the water.
I want to see them in their natural element, but that means getting into the water.
Cameraman simon and i are going to try an experiment.
I want to see and film a wels catfish underwater.
I want to see exactly how europe's biggest freshwater predator operates
In its element.
What i really want to see is the moment when the wels gets to strike its prey.
It isn't gonna be easy.
This is something that very, very few people get to see, but i do have a few ideas
About what i can use to tempt the fish in.
This is the camera, and this is what's gonna be behind the boat,
And about three feet behind this is gonna be the lure,
So it's gonna be looking back.
Thing is, this is actually quite a lump of a camera,
Even though it's a small camera, so i think... Here we go.
Floatation.
Two, if we need them.
Two tanks.
And to stop it wibble-Wobbling around a little bit
Because we're angling, there we go, one of those,
And that will just keep it flying straight and level.
And we'll lob that off the back of the boat, and we'll see the lure,
And hopefully we'll see something come up and grab the bait.
I'll need to hang on.
Otherwise, you know, if something big takes this,
You know, the whole monitor could go overboard.
This is actually working really well.
I've got the lure in picture.
It's bang in the middle of the screen.
I'm actually watching.
You know, normally it's just there, and you've no idea what's happening.
I can actually see my lure out behind the boat.
A fish. I think it was a carp.
Yeah. Oh.
We're bumping over the bottom.
Oh, dear. What's going on there? Right, need to... In a bit, in a bit, in a bit.
It's bumping. It's bumping.
I've lost the lure, haven't i?
I've lost the lure.
I think the camera might have been bashed around a bit, though.
Aah!
Not robust enough, unfortunately, to withstand being bashed along the bottom.
But other than that, actually doing very well.
Before that, there was this gray shadow
That appeared from nowhere which sort of came and went,
And it could have been a catfish investigating it
And shying off at the last minute.
Or it could have just been a rock going past. I don't know.
What i'm about to see is another unexpected aspect of these fishes' behavior.
What we're doing is we're doing something called clonking, and it's...
Sending a sound wave down into the water.
And we can see on the sonar... - Oh, yeah. - Yeah, yeah?
This is a fish. Oh, yes, yes, yes.
Catfish. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
On your lures.
Oh, there it is! There it is! I've got it!
There's a catfish! There's a catfish!
See him?
Yeah! It's right under the lure!
Yeah. Fantastic!
I see him on the sonar. Yeah, yeah.
There he is. There he is. Tentacles.
That's big? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right. What's happened now...
And it's coming up now, right in the middle of the screen.
Fantastic. Look at that.
He's attacking the camera.
What this has just demonstrated is that when you've got splashing,
When you've got commotion on the surface,
The catfish... Which, they live on the bottom... They will come up to investigate.
Ah, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes.
Bottom of the screen.
There it is! There it is! There it is!
Look at that! There it is!
Oh, he's come off. Come off.
This is amazing... Getting a fish on-Camera taking a bait,
Attracted in by sound and vibration.
Like sharks to a plane crash, these fish fear nothing.
It even attacks the camera.
It's been really good, though, just to actually see what i've seen on the screen.
Very, very rare to see this fish behavior.
So i feel sort of quite privileged to have seen that.
Although we didn't get a fish into the boat,
I actually feel it was a successful day
Because i feel that i've actually learnt a lot about the behavior,
Particularly how they react to vibration, to commotion on the surface.
Here's this fish that lives on the bottom, but if it hears something, it comes up,
And the tentacles are waving, and it investigates.
Without the camera under the water, you just assume that nothing is happening.
As soon as you put the camera there, dangling under the boat,
You're making the noise with the clonk,
They're coming up into the middle of the water,
And they won't know what's going on.
Everything i've seen so far... The reaction of the wels catfish
To a bait in the water... Confirms its aggression as a top predator
And also its fearlessness.
Combine that with supersizing, and you've got a creature that you really wouldn't
Want to get too close to in the water.
What i want to know now is just how big a wels would need to be
To tackle me in the water.
I've said they look like giant slugs,
But in their element, they're like super-Sensitive sharks.
Time for another experiment.
Like most people, if i jump in the water, i don't sink.
I float, even after a heavy lunch.
And it's not too difficult.
I'm flapping my arms a little bit and my legs.
But the question is, how big would a fish need to be to pull me under?
Right.
I've got one dive weight on at the moment... 41/2 pounds...
And i can support it, actually.
That's harder. It's harder.
9 pounds now.
Doubling the rate of paddling, but i can still just about
Keep myself on the surface.
Right.
I can support 9 pounds with a bit of flapping and flailing of my legs.
We've just weighed this rock.
This is gonna make it up to 20 pounds.
I'll just see how i do against that combined weight in the water.
That was actually very interesting.
20 pounds of weight attached to me, i could just about keep my head above-Water.
It was a struggle.
I reckon another 5 pounds, and i'd have just gone,
No matter how much my arms and legs
Would have been flailing around, and that's interesting,
'cause if you ask most people
How big a fish would have to be to pull a body underwater, they'd say probably
Something about the same size as that person.
Now, i weigh about 175 pounds, and on land, i can take care of myself,
But in the water, you know, a fish would just have to exert a pull of 25 pounds,
About 1/7 of my body weight.
And i wouldn't stand a chance. I'd just be gone.
And if i took a lungful of water underneath there,
Then nobody would ever see me again.
Okay, that just goes to show
That it doesn't need to be a huge fish to pull me under.
Let's have a closer look at pulling power.
That 147 pounder pulled me off my feet and almost into the water.
How much force can i generate?
I couldn't even pull in our director, and she's half my weight.
She's a match for me even one-Handed.
So, i could be pulled under the water
By a fish just half my size... 75 to 100 pounds.
And the thing about the ebro is that the river is just full of fish
That size and much bigger, which possibly explains
Why you don't see very many people swimming.
With only a few days left in northern spain,
I'm trying to break the 150-Pound marker that i have set myself.
My respect for these fish over the past few days has really grown.
Oh! Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh!
Aah!
If this one pulls me over, i'm in real trouble.
I'm nearly tipping forward over that edge, and i'm just gonna move a bit.
My groin is starting to ache.
There it is.
The rod's jammed in.
It's just physical stuff... Physical work.
It's coming up.
Strong fish, but i think... Yeah... It's tiring.
Tiring, tiring.
There it is! There's the fish!
Hey!
Good grief!
My crotch is killing me!
And there it is.
But does it weigh more than 150 pounds?
Get a measure of the beast.
That is 7 foot... 1, 2, 3, 4... 7 foot, 4 inches.
Let me open the mouth.
You can actually hear the echo coming out of the mouth there.
Hello, hello!
I can see its gullet opening and closing.
If i was so inclined, i could put my fist down there quite easily.
That is an eating machine.
The whole thing is nearly 8 foot of just solid, rippling muscle.
If that grabbed hold of your leg, that's an unpleasant-Enough thought.
But if that decided not to let go, and you were swimming, you'd be history.
I'm about 175 pounds on a good day or a bad day, depending how you look at it.
This fish could be more than that.
Yeah.
74 kilos.
That's about 163 pounds.
Not quite as big and fat and ugly as i am.
What i find really hard to credit... When i was doing those experiments
Where i was trying to see how much force i could exert in the water,
And there was somebody on the bank with a spring balance
Just hooked 'round their finger reading off, "okay, 30 or 40 pounds."
This thing in the water is almost pulling me off the bank.
I was having to dig in and really act like i was in a tug-Of-War.
How something with nothing solid to actually grab hold of
Can exert that force in the water, you know, i find quite mind-Boggling.
It is very, very impressive, indeed.
And now it's time to let this guy go.
Let's see how he reacts.
Fish has recovered a bit... Maybe a bit more than i have.
I'm gonna put it back in the water.
If it does have a go at me, i'm gonna actually stand my ground
And... A bit like an elephant... See if it it's a false charge,
Or will it actually go and grab my leg?
This is what i'm trying to remember... That this fish is bigger than i am.
It's got a few inches on me.
I've got a few pounds on this fish, but i'm in the water.
My extra weight actually counts for nothing.
It's the fish's environment.
Sinking down towards my foot.
I think... I think my reflexes overruled what i wanted to do,
Which was stand my ground, but i can visualize it too much,
What might be going on down there, what might be going through its mind,
So don't tangle with these guys in their environment is the message.
Wels catfish are predators with a lot of attitude.
Two of the fish that i caught turned on me while i was releasing them.
But as far as eating people... A wels will swallow anything
That fits inside its monstrous gut.
Ah! Yes, yes, yes!
And if that includes you, well, it's no respecter of species.
It seems that if they ever went away,
These medieval monsters are now back, alive and well,
And still growing in the river ebro in northern spain.
This is quite a monstrous beast.
If i came back here in 20 or 30 years, i think it's possible
There could be something in here
That is bigger than anything that's ever existed before.
And in the not-Too-Distant future, a baby-Snatching, man-Eating wels
Could once again make the front-Page news.