[Topsail Angler]

MOUNT HOLLY, N.C. — A fisherman looking to catch a catfish for dinner instead reeled in a fish that flashed its teeth and bit his knife.

Jerry Melton, 46, was fishing in the Catawba River last week when he caught what state wildlife officials later identified as a piranha, a South American carnivorous fish that lives in freshwater.




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Dave, guess you won't be swimming in freshwater either.....

 

[kayakingglenn]

Man that scary.............. I lived in the DC area when someone put some snake fish in the Potomac River, and many of the lakes and ponds. What a disaster! The only good thing about it was that the natural resource people in both of Maryland and Virginia posted rewards for catching and the fish. Never caught one though.

 

[skooteri]

Snakeheads, piranhas-- what else are they going to find in the Catawba? Freshwater sharks?

 

[kayakingglenn]

yet I got the name snakehead backwards didn't I. y'all will have to forgive me as I am a recovering stroke victim.

 

[skooteri]

yet I got the name snakehead backwards didn't I. y'all will have to forgive me as I am a recovering stroke victim.

's okay. We knew what ya meant. Didn't even notice it really, until you pointed it out.

Glad you are on the recovering side of stroke.

 

[Jeffonc]

yet I got the name snakehead backwards didn't I. y'all will have to forgive me as I am a recovering stroke victim.

I still don't see it. Seems like somebody has been repeatedly telling me over the last 20 years that I'm not very observant sometimes... might have been my wife - can't remember for certain

 

[Jeffonc]

I remember a picture in the N&O from the 90's where a fisherman caught a big one in Shelley Lake in Raleigh. Found this link, but no pic: RARE PIRANHA HOOKED BY CHESAPEAKE MAN IN LAKE NEAR RALEIGH

I suppose a piranha that big could get to be a handful in a fish tank.

 

[backlash]

There was a Pirahana taken from Lake Rim here in Fayetteville a few years back as well. I really don't want find Snakeheads, Pirahanas, Boa Constrictors or anything else that doesn't belong here at my fishing holes. This exoctic pet thing has gotten out of hand.

 

[Coach D]

I just wonder why people buy these things. Also, why are they allowed to be sold? Maybe we need to have a background check to buy exotic things. If it comes up you are not a reliable person or have done something like this before you are not allowed to buy one.

 

[FishinTopsail]

I just wonder why people buy these things. Also, why are they allowed to be sold?

Coach, I think it is illegal to buy, sell, or possess a pirahana in NC. But I may be wrong. Wouldn't be the first time. Just ask my wife Donna!

 

[Crummy]

Wow, I need to go down to the river and see what bites.

 

[bankandsurf]

Piranha are ILLEGAL in NC and in the US I believe but there is a huge market for illegal exotics, and this is the end result, they get too much to handle and "Freed". I also read in that article that "He pry-ed open the fishes mouth with his pocket knife and it bit down on the blade leaving an impression in the metal" now I'm not an ichthyologist but I don't believe a One pound fish(whose teeth are designed for tearing not crushing) could leave a dent in a metal knife blade.

 

[backlash]

Yea, You would think that if it could bite down hard enough to make an impression, it would have broken the blade.

 

[kayakingglenn]

Nice observation!

 

[Bread Man 1]

Weird animals and bad people. I was fishing some backwaters one hot summer day a couple of summers ago. A snake slipped off of the bank. This snake was a whitish, yellowish color, and was at least 10 feet long, no lie. The only snake I could think of that would grow that size and that color was an Anaconda. Someones pet I guess.

 

[FishinTopsail]

Was this what you saw Breadman? It's a albino Burmese python. This one is named Mellow Yellow. Got the pic searching google.

 

[wolfpackcpa]

Depending on what style of pirahna it was (normally a red belly) I don't think that they get much bigger than 12 inches. A close cousin, the Pacu, looks exactly like the red belly but can get to the size of a medium pizza. They are plant eaters, mainly, I have worked in a petstore before and like most fish will try somehting out if it looks funny. I have had pirahna in an aquarium before, up north, and for the most part they are pretty docile. We should be more worried about them killing our native fish than eating humans. They have been known to take a chunk out of a hand that was cleaning the tank before. No matter what it was it isn't a native species and doesn't belong. I have owned many exotic animals before and stress that if you do your research first you shouldn't have to let them go before getting too big and second don't release to the wild, 90% of the time they were captive breed and know nothing else.

A sore spot for me, it only take a few to ruin it for everyone.

 

[Bread Man 1]

Was this what you saw Breadman? It's a albino Burmese python. This one is named Mellow Yellow. Got the pic searching google.

That is just about the same color snake. I gave him a new name though. "Mocacconda" I only used that name on very large moccasins, but the name fit the snake I saw that day well.

 

[gambusia]

That fish is no more exotic than flathead catfish, blue catfish, freshwater drum, spotted bass, white crappie, channel catfish, brown trout , rainbow trout, ect that have been stocked in various parts of NC where they are not native.

Heck there is a lake here in Asheville that has had exotic blue tilapia since 1965.

Since piranhas have been illegal in NC for years, you wonder where they got one.

 

[d-el]

I saw on the N&O website that this fish wasn't a piranha after all, but was its close relative, a Pacu.

newsobserver.com | Catawba fish wasn't piranha

Pacu - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia