Italian Bro Wearing NASCAR Gear Catches Catfish Big Enough To Swallow Ricky Bobby

There are ‘big fish’ and then there’s this mutant Wels Catfish caught last week by a gentleman fishing in the Po Delta of Italy weighing 266-pounds (19 stone), and measuring 8ft9in in length.

Dino Ferrari reportedly reeling in the behemoth Wels Catfish in Po Delta, Italy last week and it is considered to be the largest of the species ever caught on rod and reel (but not the biggest Wels Catfish ever caught, that honors goes to a 308-pound catfish also caught in the Po Delta, and measuring 9-feet in length).

When news of this monstrosity of a catfish began hitting the Internet yesterday I was hesitant to post it, because pictures of the fisherman (Dino Ferrari, is that not the most stereotypically Italian sounding name in history?) show him wearing the exact same outfit as in this YouTube video from 2013 where he is cradling another gigantic Wels Catfish:

Former Guyism overlord, current Barstool blogger, and USC Football evangelist Chris Spags passed along that video above to me along with some pearls of wisdom on how the carcass of this trophy fish should be dealt with:

Put this seabeast down and leave it on the stoop of a black short order cook in Louisiana with a Post-It saying “Sry for Katrina. PS George Bush does care” and that’s a wrap. He would have been proud to be such a tasty po’ boy for someone who vomited up a Hand Grenade just a few hours earlier.

Firstly, it’s a mutha-fuckin’ RIVER MONSTER. Calling it a seabeast is demeaning to river monsters and seabeasts alike, so get your mutant fish nomenclature correct! Secondly, he’s right. We need to fry this summmabitch up and make it into po’boys, because there’s few things in life as delicious as a catfish po’boy.

I’m still not convinced this sucker was caught last week, but rather that it was caught back in 2013 when the YouTube video above was first published, but the Daily Mail (first to report on this catch) adds to the story:

A fisherman has caught a giant 8ft 9in long catfish weighing 19 stone – and it could be the biggest ever caught with the humble rod and line.
Dino Ferrari hooked the huge wels catfish, which was 2.67m in length, last week in the Po Delta in Italy.
The cannibalistic wels catfish, also known as the sheatfish, is native to Europe and can grow as long as 13ft and up to 62st – but it is exceedingly rare to catch one that is over two metres long.

Screw your stones and your metric system. I’m tired of having to google ’19 stone in pounds’ to look up the weight of a fish that you claim was caught last week but was actually caught two years ago…

The giant catfish immediately bolted 100 metres downstream, but Sam, from Chester, hung on and after a 35 minute battle finally landed the 2.5 metre-long fish.
In time honoured tradition, he then posed for a photo to secure bragging rights before letting the creature swim back into the water at the River Ebro in Catalonia.
In October a Cornish pensioner caught an 8ft-long, 15 stonepart-albino catfish, thought to be the biggest of its kind ever caught.
The aptly named Tom Herron, 68, from Launceston, battled the cream-coloured monster fish in the River Segre, Mequinenza, Spain, for 40 minutes before finally hauling it in.
The wels catfish is scaleless and lives in fresh and brackish water.
It is recognisable by its broad, flat head and wide mouth.
The wels catfish can live for thirty years and live off annelid worms, gastropods, insects, crustaceans and fish including other catfish; the larger ones also eat frogs, mice, rats, and even ducks.
Recently, Wels Catfish have been spotted in non-native habitats lunging out of the water to grab pigeons on land.

These things eat pigeons and we haven’t nuked the entire river yet? What the hell people?!?

Getting back to the whole 2013 vs. 2015 thing, let’s examine the evidence. These pictures are the one’s the Daily Mail published claiming the fish was caught last week:

Take notice of that Italian bro’s NASCAR gear: hat + jacket.

Now the previous YouTube video was published in 2013. Here’s that same outfit (and fish?) in GIF:

I’m calling it: same fish and everyone’s been duped into thinking this is a new catch.

[Barstool Sports / BSO / DailyMail]