8-year-old reels in piranha at Pennsylvania lake: ‘It was pretty crazy’

DELAWARE COUNTY, Pa. (KYW via CNN Newsource) —

It was a piranha out of water and way out of place. Saturday was no ordinary fishing trip for Seamus Coffey and his dad, Michael.

They were at Ridley Park Lake in Pennsylvania when the young angler reeled in a catch he won’t soon forget.

“I caught two catfish,” Seamus said.

The 8-year-old Seamus says he normally baits his line with string and a hot dog. He was fishing Saturday at Ridley Park Lake with his dad when he felt a tug.

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“He thought it was a bass at first because we usually catch little catfish,” Michael Coffey said. “So he’s reeling it, reeling it, reeling it and then when I saw it, what did I say? I said, ‘Slow down, dude, you might lose it.’ This looks like something we haven’t caught before, like a big bluegill or something.”

“I’m reeling it in and I’m thinking it’s a bass,” Seamus said.

“He got it on the ground and I was like, ‘It’s a bluegill, I don’t know what this is,’ and he said it’s a piranha,'” Michael Coffey said.

The Coffeys have fished here for years. Young Seamus seemed to know exactly what he was looking at.

“Because I watch YouTube,” he said.

“Remember, I Google imaged it, and I was like, ‘Dude, it’s a red-bellied piranha,'” Michael Coffey said. “It was pretty crazy.”

Officials with Pennsylvania’s Fish and Boat Commission said this was likely someone’s pet until things got out of control at home. It was also explained that the person likely believed they were doing the right thing by placing a piranha in the lake.

“Some of our folks have determined that this is certainly a species of piranha,” Mike Parker with the Fish and Boat Commission said. “And that person no longer wanted their pet and then unlawfully introduced it into the waterway.”

Coffey said at first he put the native South American fish back in the lake but then thought twice.

“Basically have to get rid of it for the ecosystem,” Coffey said, “so we ended up getting rid of it, humanely, and put it back for the snapping turtle that hangs out over near the rocks over there.”

They estimated the piranha to be about 9 1/2 inches in length, weighing about 2 pounds with all those teeth.

State officials believe this to be an isolated incident.