Man Catches Rare Fish In Delaware County Lake
By Diana Rocco
RIDLEY PARK, Pa., (CBS) – A local man made a bizarre catch while fishing in a Delaware County lake.
"I got a nice yank on my line and I started reeling it in," said Mike Mszaneckyj.
But it wasn't what Mszaneckyj was expecting, fishing at this Ridley Park Lake with his son Sunday as they do most days.
"I went to take hook out, I pulled it's gum back, and it had real sharp teeth. I jumped back a little bit. It was wild. I thought it was a piranha," Mszaneckyj said.
It wasn't quite a piranha - but close! Fish and Game have determined the catch was actually a pacu and it's in the piranha family, native to South America. It looks like a piranha, but the teeth aren't as sharp and look more human like.
"I thought I had a carp at first," said Mszaneckyj.
Carp is what he normally catches, but always throws them back. This one bit as soon as he put his bait in the water.
"I put a piece of bread, threw it in. He hit it hard almost immediately. He was hungry," said Mszaneckyj.
The pacu put up a fight. He decided to take it home for a few days and eventually dropped it off at a pet shop.
"It was wild, like I hit the lottery or something like that, it was weird. We've been coming down here for years, I never caught nothing like that," he said.
But he does have his theories how it got here. About a week ago, Mszaneckyj says he was fishing when he saw a man dump a bucket of something into the lake. While he doesn't know for sure, he believes that is how the fish got there in the first place.
