It was not a different day in the lives of Carlos Ballarín and Mario Vallejo, at least that’s how it seemed. These two fishermen, as they have done so many times before, decided to approach the Ebro river. Then, the sighting of a white catfish of impressive dimensions left them absolutely speechless.
When they reached the spot, both decided to slightly change the destination they had originally planned and try a spot they had never fished before, as they told the Jara y Sedal team. In this way, they discovered a new area and it was there, on the outskirts of Zaragoza, where they noticed the presence of the enormous animal.
They then set about the task of pulling the fish to shore, but it was not as easy as they thought. Carlos and Mario spent almost half an hour fighting the white catfish and finally managed to reduce it.
The white catfish was over 2.30 metres long
After “two bites of small catfish”, says Ballarín, “a big bite made my mate Mario jump out of his chair. When he picked up the rod, he told me that he could tell it was big from the way it pulled, but at no time did we expect it to be an albino.
“We’ve caught fish of that size before, but we’ve never seen any albino before. Once on the shore, we couldn’t believe what we had caught”, said one of the fishermen. After this, they put it back in the water.
The exact size of the white catfish was 2.31 metres long, although the weight figure could not be stated with such precision. It would be, according to Carlos’ calculations, between 80 and 90 kilograms.
Without a doubt, this is a moment in their lives that will stay with them for a long time.
