Three-year-old Brady Swan of La Crosse, WI will have trouble topping the story of his first fish.
His parents, David and Jacquie Swan of 608 Avon St., said the 9-inch fish Brady caugh Sunday morning apparently was a piranha, a vicious, flesh-eating fish. Brady causght the fish on a worm as he fished with his parents from a dock near Al's Marina, along French Slough off the Mississippi River. The marina is on French Island.
"Some people commented that it will be his lifetime fishing story," Jacquie said later. "Already, at 3, he'll never be able to top it.
"It was the first fish he's ever caught," she said. "My husband grabbed hold of it and at first thought it was a really big sunfish. Then he thought it was a sheepshead." Onlookers from the marina told the family it apparently was a piranha, a fish that lives in South American rivers and lakes. The fish had a large number of very sharp teeth, and the colours and fin structure of a piranha.
The Swans suspect someone had the fish in a home aquarium and decided to let it go. "We're going to take it to the taxidermist and have it mounted," Jacquie said.
