Potential Largest Freshwater Fish Ever Caught by a Woman Landed in Thailand

A 9-foot long, 480-pound South American arapaima (pirarucu) recently caught in Thailand could be the largest freshwater fish ever landed by a woman.

According to the Leicester Mercury, Dawn Hull, from the United Kingdom, was on vacation with her husband and son and they were fishing at a lake in the southern part of the country when she hook and landed the fish by herself–a task that took her nearly half an hour.

After researching angling records online, the owner of the lodge where Hull and her family stayed informed her that she might have hooked the biggest freshwater fish ever caught by a woman.

“It’s nice to think I’m the first woman in the world to have landed a freshwater fish that size,” she said. “It didn’t sink in for a few hours. It was when I was floating round the pool and I thought no other woman had ever caught a fish even near the weight of that one. A woman came up to me at the pool and said ‘you’re the legend of the lake’.”

If approved by the International Game Fish Association, Hull’s arapaima would certainly beat the current record of 339 pounds.

What makes Hull’s story even more unique is her son, Dan, 22, also netted a pending record fish: a 33-pound, 4-ounce rohu. The current record is 27 pounds.