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Episode 51

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Episode 51 Who can tell us what was captured at the center of the aerial photo below? Clue #1: X marks the spot: Clue #2: It weighed approximately one pound. Clue #3: It was approximately 1 foot long. Clue #4: It is a cousin of the Piranha. VIDEO CLUE: Clue #5: It was caught using a big fat worm.

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SOLUTION It's the foot-long one-pound red bellied Pacu (cousin to the Piranha) that was captured in Portage Lakes in the summer of 2010: It was caught on the Turkeyfoot Channel between West Reservoir and Turkeyfoot Lake from the dock at Baine's Pier 619 Pontoon Rentals on Stutz Avenue: As written in the Akron Beacon Journal story at: Deadliest catch? Not really. But girl gets bragging rights. Matt Wolfe, fisheries biologist for the Portage Lakes office of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Division of Wildlife, said the fish was probably tossed into one of the lakes by someone who no longer wanted to keep feeding it in a home aquarium as it got bigger and bigger. "More often than not," he said, fish like the one Mackenzie caught "get so big in people's aquariums and they eat so much they just dump them into the lake." One time, he said, during a routine survey of fish in the Portage Lakes, a 3-foot koi was discovered. "Most of your aquarium trade fish die off in the wintertime," he said. Piranhas and pacus cannot survive cold Ohio winters, he said. Pacus are vegetarians and even though they have sharp teeth and look intimidating, Wolfe said, "all they do is shred vegetation." The fish reportedly can reach a maximum of 42 inches long and live up to 15 years. Pacus are caught and released in the video below: