An English angler has secured a spot in the record books thanks to this creature from the deep.

 

The largest albino catfish ever captured by a fisherman is the whopper, which was captured by the courageous Chris Grimmer.

 

The 8-foot beast weighed 194 pounds, which was 2 pounds more than the previous record set by blind angler Shelia Penfold from the previous year.

 

Monster catch: On the River Ebro, close to Barcelona, Spain, Chris Grimmer, left, landed the largest albino catfish ever recorded by a fisherman.

When the white catfish caught his bait, Chris, a 35-year-old groundskeeper, had to spend thirty minutes attempting to reel it in.

 

Chris, a resident of Sheffield, celebrated the record catch with his pals by sipping champagne from a bottle while sitting on the riverbank.

He had caught the record catfish while fishing for a week in the River Ebro, close to Barcelona, Spain, with three friends.

 

Chris’s rod bent twice as the fish grabbed his bait of halibut pellets because it was so large.

“I knew it was a big one when it took my reel and stripped it,” he remarked.

 

“Our tour guide couldn’t return quickly enough after he left to get some food at that very moment, since one of us had called to inform him.

“It was like trying to reel in a bus, it took me forever to bring it in.”

To assist in pulling it out, one of my friends dove into the water.

The guide had returned by then, and he had placed it in the weigh sling.

When I saw it was a record, I started jumping down the bank and ended up in the water.

“It was worth it even though I could hardly walk afterward due to extreme fatigue.”

 

After being captured, the albino fish was safely released back into the sea.

“We know what the records are for catfish so we realised straight away that it was a record,” stated Ashley Scott, the guide from Catmaster Tours who arranged the excursion.

 

On the bank, there was chaos as everyone applauded and cheered. Chris put a drop of champagne into the river for the fish as we celebrated with a bottle.

In October of last year, Sheila Penfold of Wandsworth, South London, captured her 192-pound albino catfish.

The world record catfish weighs an incredible 646 pounds, or 46 stone, and was captured in Thailand in 2005. It is known as the Giant Mekong Catfish.