July 3
Mount Holly, N.C. - A fisherman looking to catch a catfish for dinner instead reeled in a fish that flashed its teeth and bit his knife. J. Melton, 46, was fishing in the Catawba River last week when he caught what state wildlife officials later identified as a piranha, a South American carnivorous fish that lives in freshwater.

"When I got it on the bank I didn't really know what it was; I hadn't seen anything like it before." When he opened the fish's mouth with a pocketknife, he said the fish bit down and left an impression on the blade.

Wildlife officials told Melton on Saturday that he caught a 1 pound, 4 ounce piranha that was probably dumped in the river. The piranha was possibly the first caught in the region. Piranha have no predators in our waters.

Melton is keeping the piranha in his freezer until he can have it mounted.

"I've been fishing there my whole life," he said. "Catching something like that is definitely going to make me think twice about what's in that water."
go

that's some good eatin' right there

And this is why you do research before you buy a pet; know what you're looking at. I have seen a few petstores mislabel fish; therefor leading people to believe that a larger cousin of a smaller fish won't grow very large. There are a few likely scenarios:

1st - person buys piranha which was wrongly advertised as a pacu (similar looking, vegitarian cousin) only to discover that it is not a pacu after putting it in a tank with chiclids (or whatever) and coming in the next morning to find all other fishies gone except the "pacu"; disposes of it by throwing it in the only logical place, the local river

2nd - person buys piranah wrongly advertised as pacu and add it to a tank of pacu only to find that the new "pacu" has eaten/attacked one of the real pacu; throws it in river.

3rd - person buys piranha and doesn't realize it's size and eating habits; gets rid of it by tosing it in the river.

4th - piranha bit it's owner; owner doesn't want it any more; throws it in the river.

I had one that I mistakenly bought as another type of fish, I was new to the whole aquarium thing. It got to be almost a foot long and liked to eat Oreos. I had it for almost 3 years until it died when it broke the heater in the middle of the night and the water got to cold.

Dang....hellava bite.

And people wonder why I won't swim in water where I can't see my hooves.....

this has spoilt my holiday GREAT

hell yeah...I stick to pools myself

Yeah,You can never tell if it was some kind of expieriment gone wrong "Remember the movie" PARANHA"

I like to eat Oreos too.

Here ya go!




Sorry about the missing bite. I had to make sure it was good enough for you!

Hahahhahahaha funnny because it probly does go a little sumthin like that

Damn, how did I miss this post? Very accurate scenarios! Mine was a form of number one. My son had won this goldfish at a carnival and that evolved into buying a real tank instead of a fishbowl. Well you have a real tank so you need more real fish. We were at Walmart and the ghouramis were on sale as the fish of the day for a whopping 99 cents,lol They had one that looked a little different than the others so we boutght that one and a few other small fish. After a few weeks my son started noticng the fish of the day looking a lot like a pirhana,lol He was a super cool fish to have though. He was freinds with all the fish we had put him the tank with from the start but any fish that we added later he would eat. We fed him these cubes made out of tube worms. He would take the first cube and tear it up for the other fish then go eat his. Like I said earlier he loved Oreos and if you stuck your finger in the water he would go on his side so you could "pet" him. We were all pretty sad when he died three years later.

^ That's cool that he didn't eat the ones he 'grew up' with. LOL

What was his pocket knife made of....play dough??? Or do piranhas have adamantium teeth.

ROTFLMAO!