In his 30 years of fishing for catfish, including 17 years as a fishing guide, Capt. Richard Simms has never seen anything like what 15-year-old Edwards Tarumianz caught Tuesday on his boat on the Tennessee River.
Tarumianz landed a dazzling, all-white catfish with pink fins that Scenic City Fishing Charters’ Facebook post called a “fish of a lifetime.”
“You may catfish for the rest of your life and never catch, or even see, another fish like that,” Simms told Tarumianz. “I’ve been serious catfishing for 30 years…and that’s the first albino to ever come in my boat.”
The Facebook post admitted it was not actually an albino “because it lacks the pink eye,” adding that it is likely a piebald. Though it could be leucistic. According to Field and Stream, biologists from the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency could not verify it one way or the other.
“Regardless, we all agree that it is a great and rare catch,” a TWRA spokesperson told Field and Stream.
And…