By Bill Grubb

ROGERSVILLE - The fish were biting in the Holston River recently.  At least one could have been because it came equipped with a mouth full of teeth.

Hawkins County resident Randy Wright, an avid fisherman who by his own admission goes fishing "six days a week and Sundays after church," recently caught an unusual specimen that has made the modest fisherman the center of attention.

Wright, a 53-year-old who lives on Bailey Johnson Road, said he believes the fish is a piranha, an identification also made by the owner of a local bait shop.

The fisherman paid a Friday visit to the Rogersville Review with his three pound eight ounce catch, now frozen but with mouth full of teeth still visible.

Wright said he and his wife were fishing on the afternoon of July 6 at approximately
4 p.m. when he caught the unique specimen.  They started the day at Beech Creek and then traveled down the Holston River and into a shady area approximately a mile and a half down stream from the Burem Bridge.

"We were about ready to call it a day because it was so hot and it was with the last worm I was going to use,"  Wright said. 

"I thought I had a catfish because it was bending my pole.  I wore it out and it was laying in the water and I was so excited.   I was looking at it and I said, 'I've got me a piranha," Wright recounted, saying he recognized the fish from pictures and National Geographic.

"Really,  I thank my Lord and Savior for letting me catch this fish," Wright humbly said. "I have been disabled since I was 36-years-old and to see all the people and the way they react when they see this. It is amazing.   I would have rather caught this than a 20 pound bass."

Wright did note one lady who had been fishing nearby with her husband had a slightly different reaction the day he caught the fish. 

"She had been dangling her bare feet in the river and after she saw what I had caught she pulled her feet back into the boat and put on her shoes," he said with a chuckle.

Wright said he believes his catch had been having an impact on the area for some time.

"All my life I have been fishing in Beech Creek.  It wasn't any trouble to go up there and catch 150 to 200 big bluegill.  The last two trips I have been up there I have been lucky to catch 25 to 30,"  he said.

According to Bobby Wilson, assistant chief of fisheries for the Tennessee Wildlife Resources Agency (TWRA), the fish could be a piranha or its less famous "cousin" the pacu, although he conceded he is not an expert and it is difficult to tell.

Both are freshwater fish indigenous to South America, not the Holston River.

"The pacu is more of a herbaceous fish that eats aquatic plants even though it does have teeth," Wilson said, although information on the fish indicates it will also eat smaller fish.

Wilson said it is rare, but not unheard of, for someone to catch an unusual fish in Tennessee.  He explained his agency usually receives a request to identify a fish once or twice a year.

Wilson said pacus and piranhas are both legal to have as aquarium pets, but it is illegal to release them into the wild.

"The reason that they are allowed to be kept as pets is that they are tropical fish and, therefore, if released they usually cannot survive the cold water during the winter months here in Tennessee," the TWRA official said.

Wilson said he would speculate the fish Wright caught outgrew its aquarium and its owner didn't have the heart to kill it so it was released alive into the Holston River, "which we strongly discourage people from doing for any species of aquatic plant or animal."

 Regardless of what the fish is, Wright said the catch is something he will always remember.
"I am going to take it to the taxidermist.   This is something special and I thank the Lord for letting me be the one to catch it,"  he said.