A barefoot Florida angler armed with sandwich bread may have managed the catch of a lifetime when he pulled a monster black pacu from a suburban Florida canal.
In a YouTube video posted May 7, Mat Deso documented his brawl with an absolute unit of a fish. The fight drew a crowd of curious neighbors, more than one of whom casually admitted to feeding the fish on a daily basis. A video of the catch was also posted to Instagram.
The video shows the angler baiting a hook with a hunk of white bread and tossing it into a neighborhood waterway.
“I think I got him. Oh my goodness, I actually got him,” Deso says as a fish swirls the water surface, the line goes tight, and the drag begins to scream as the fish runs for deeper water. As the fight continues, more and more people join the crowd of onlookers.
“My dad’s been feeding this fish every freakin’ night for like the last two years,” an observer, who Deso calls Dylan, announces.
“I’ve got to start putting some heat on him,” Deso says as the fish makes another run, pulling out line.
Deso, fighting the fish barefoot from a manicured backyard lawn, borrows a friend’s shoes to avoid shredding his feet as he finally muscles the fish into shallow water.
Eventually, Deso wrestles the fish, a pacu, to shore. Putting one hand on the fish while he holds the line with the other, Deso waits for a bystander to bring out a scale.
“Do you want to pet him? Come pet him, it’s your fish,” he says to an elderly gentleman on the shore.
Deso heaves the fish out of the water and goes to a neighbor’s patio where his friend has pulled out a bathroom scale. He steps onto the scale holding the fish in both arms in a giant bear hug. After weighing the fish, Deso gently releases the pacu into the canal.
While the video doesn’t record a close-up of the scale numbers, Deso and the fish weighed 240 pounds according to the commentary. When Deso returns to the scale after releasing the fish, it reads 173 pounds. If you do the math, the pacu allegedly tipped the scale at about 67 pounds.
For comparison, Gary Roberts holds the IGFA all-tackle world record for a 55-pound black pacu he caught in Tamarac, Florida.
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Although the giant pacu was impressive, it will not qualify for a Florida state record. To be certified, anglers are required to contact the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. Then, an FWC biologist must verify the species, and the fish must be weighed on a certified scale. Photos or videos of the fish on that scale, the gear used to catch the fish, and the angler with the fish are also required.
It is unlawful in Florida for any person to release freshwater fish that are not indigenous to the state, as outlined in Florida Statute 379.231. Although pacu are not native to Florida, the fish are not on the FWC’s list of invasive species.
Pacu is an herbivorous species native to South America and a relative of the piranha. They were introduced in Florida through the aquarium trade in the 1960s. While there are no established populations in the Sunshine State, the escapees from residential aquariums are occasionally caught in the state’s waterways.
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