Pictures of the fish shown on Angling Times's front cover have been circulating on the internet ever since dutch angler Ewout Blom caught it from a stillwater in the south of the country, in March 2006.Since then, the fish has been variously claimed to have come from a lake in America and the Baltic.
It has also been linked to a story of a large 40lbs-plus pike which was landed after it grabbed a smaller fish on the way in.
The following account of the capture surfaced on US fishing forums last summer after pike anglers in America became suspicious:
“This pike was caught on the 6th of March 2006 by Dutch fisherman Ewout Blom in a pretty big lake in the south of Holland, I know the name of the lake from where quite a number of 40 plus pikes were caught and released but promised not to mention the name to avoid too heavy fishing pressure.
"This pike had a length of 127 cm and a weight of 19,5 kilo and was caught trolling with a Rapala Super Shad Rap in perch colour and I have about 10 original digital pictures of this fish.
"For the metric-impaired (such as yours truly), 127cm and 19.4 kilos works out to right around 50 inches, and just barely shy of 43 pounds.”
