Monster Record Breaking Wels Catfish caught in Italy

A record-breaking wels catfish(Silurus glanis) was landed earlier this month by MADCAT Pro Staff Alessandro Biancardi with a length of 285cm (112.2in-9.35ft). This giant Wels was caught in the River Po in Italy while Mr. Biancardi was fishing solo on a johnboat throwing lures for these monsters on spinning gear. This new catch beats the previous Catch and Release IGFA world length record by 4 cm and is the culmination of 23 years of hard work for Mr. Biancardi.

Alessandro was fishing alone in a small johnboat that day using spinning gear. The flood waters of the river were shrinking back so Alessandro chose to start with a crankbait but soon switched to a big swimbait, Savage Gear Cannibal Shad on a 12/0 (40 gram) jig head. After hitting up a couple of spots and constantly casting looking for that one strike, it finally came. A powerful strike from a fish that didn’t even budge for some seconds before deciding to take Mr. Biancardi on the fight of his life. Even with the strong current, tons of submerged obstacles, and the fish itself, Mr. Biancardi stayed calm and fought the giant wels catfish. Going up and down the river for 40 minutes alone in the fish-powered small boat before finally seeing it come up to the surface. Finally laying eyes on the fish gave him a shot of adrenaline, realizing that this was the one he had been chasing for 23 years.

Even with 40 minutes of fighting the fis behind him, Mr. Biancardi’s work was not done. He still had to land the giant catfish, after trying to glove the fish in the mouth a few times. He realized that the fish was still too strong to land from the boat, so he would have to go to shallow water and beach it. After a few attempts in the shallows, he finally succeeded and landed his record catch, the largest catfish he had ever seen. Though even with the fish tied off to recover in the shallows, his struggle wasn’t over. In the rush of landing the fish he had forgotten to anchor the boat and it was drifting away in the swift current. So after a quick swim to recover the boat, Mr. Biancardi called his friend Marco to get everyone from Wels Camp AM Po to come down.

With the fish carefully on a mat to protect it more than ten witnesses saw the tape measure stop at 285 cm. The new IGFA world-length record for catch and release. While they were curious as to what the fish might weigh, Mr. Biancardi was too concerned the stress might be too much for the fish and choose to release the giant.

I was very curious about the weight but I feared to stress too much that rare specimen so I decided to safely release it, hoping it could give another angler the same joy he gave to me.”

Congratulations to Andressi Biancardi on his monster record catch and his sportsmanship.

Eugene L.

Eugene L. is currently a writer for OutdoorHub who has chosen not to write a short bio at this time.