piranha

[whiteshoes]

Anybody hear anything about a piranha supposedly being found in Boone Lake?

[imported_VTgal]

Saw it in the news and in the paper.

Someone dumped their "pet" in the lake.

[oakland_raiders]

yeah and did you hear about the bald eagles in letcher county [img]/LDPforum/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]lol

[imported_VTgal]

Piranha catches local fishermen by surprise
Wednesday, August 03, 2005

By GREGG POWERS
For the Times News

Brothers Daniel and Josh Hawkins caught this piranha in Boone Lake Saturday afternoon near the Austin Springs Bridge. Dave Boyd photo.

BOONE LAKE - A couple of fishermen got a little more than they bargained for Saturday.

Brothers Josh and Daniel Hawkins found a good-sized piranha dangling from one of their trotlines in Boone Lake near Austin Springs.

"We were checking our lines like we always do Saturday afternoon when my brother found it," Josh, 24, said. "We've caught mostly catfish this summer. When we first saw it, we hollered at our dad, T.E. Hawkins, and he said we needed to call the game wardens."

At first, Daniel thought he had a big bluegill on the end of the line.

"We were going down the lake on our floats checking the lines like we always do, and we had already gotten a catfish and a carp," Daniel, 15, said. "I saw a flash of orange in the water, and it looked like a gigantic bluegill to me. It was about two or three pounds and had the rounded face."

When the Jonesborough brothers and their dad got the fish to the bank, they quickly discovered this wasn't your average freshwater fish.

"We got it out of the water and saw that it had teeth," Josh said.

Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency officers told the brothers they could keep the fish because it's never a good idea to introduce a non-native species into the local waters.

"It has not been confirmed yet, but there's a good possibility it's a piranha," TWRA Officer David Crum said Tuesday. "Normally, the water here is too cold to support that kind of fish. They need water that is much warmer. It's possible that this fish came from someone's aquarium."

Stranger things have happened.

"Last year, we found a 6-inch octopus dead on the bank near Pickens Bridge," Crum said. "We don't know if it was a pet, bait or if someone bought it to eat."

Now the brothers are trying figure out what to do with the fish.

"Right now we are keeping it in a cage kind of thing in a pond where it can get fresh water," Daniel said. "I'm thinking about getting an aquarium for it."

And what's the fish eating?

"We gave it some bologna, and it ate some of it," Daniel said.

It just goes to show you, you just don't know what's in the water.

"I never did like to swim in that lake," Daniel said. "Now I really don't think I want to swim there."