{"id":264350,"date":"2026-08-13T03:04:08","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:04:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/264350\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T03:04:08","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T03:04:08","slug":"its-a-piranha-pennsylvania-boy-expected-to-catch-a-bass-hooked-a-piranha-instead","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/264350\/","title":{"rendered":"‘It’s a piranha!’ Pennsylvania boy expected to catch a bass \u2014 hooked a piranha instead"},"content":{"rendered":"

A reel-y sharp turn of events.<\/p>\n

A Pennsylvania boy expected to catch a bass when fishing with his father on Saturday \u2014 but he hooked a razor-toothed red belly piranha instead.<\/p>\n

\u201cAt this point you can\u2019t put anything past Seamus,\u201d wrote the boy\u2019s father, Michael Coffey, on Facebook<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cToday he caught a 2lb red belly piranha out of the Ridley Park Lake! Of all things.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"YoungAn 8-year-old boy reels in a piranha while fishing at a lake in Pennsylvania. (Facebook\/ Mike Coffey) Facebook\/ Mike Coffey<\/p>\n

The Delaware County duo were casually casting a line when Seamus felt a bite.<\/p>\n

Michael, assuming that it was a simple bass, told Seamus to pull in the fish slowly to prevent it from getting away.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But when Seamus hoisted the creature out of the water, Michael was perplexed, at first thinking it could be an oddly large bluegill or a similar fish.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was like, \u2018Oh, this is a bluegill, I don\u2019t know what this is,’\u201d Michael told 6ABC<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Seamus immediately identified the apex predator.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd he said, \u2018It\u2019s a piranha!’\u201d<\/p>\n

His son\u2019s sharp eye for wildlife comes from educational wildlife content he watches online.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe knew it was a piranha from his educational fishing videos he watches all over the world,\u201d Michael added.<\/p>\n

The Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission confirmed that the fish was indeed a piranha, which are native to South America.\u00a0<\/p>\n

While catching a piranha in local waters sounds bizarre, incidents involving non-native species are not unheard of, according to Mike Parker, Communications Director for the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.<\/p>\n

\"APictured is the piranha caught in Ridley Park Lake in Delaware County, Pennsylvania. Facebook\/ Mike Coffey<\/p>\n

\u201cSo, it\u2019s a little bit more common than we wish,\u201d Parker told The Post.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cA few times each summer we get reports of something strange like this type of fish, an alligator, a caiman\u2026 some sort of exotic snake, reptile, or in this case, a fish.\u201d<\/p>\n

Parker noted that while Pennsylvania has strict protections for its native species, state law does not prohibit residents from owning exotic pets \u2014 though releasing them into public waterways is illegal.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe most likely scenario is that it was an unwanted pet that someone decided to release, essentially making it someone else\u2019s problem,\u201d Parker explained.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Other pathways for exotic species entering local ecosystems include live seafood trade escapes or cultural release ceremonies.<\/p>\n

Had young Seamus not reeled in the piranha, Parker believes the fish likely would have survived the summer due to its adaptability, but it would not have survived the winter once water temperatures dropped.<\/p>\n

Beyond the immediate surprise factor, releasing non-native animals poses real ecological risks.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you do introduce something non-native, especially a predator, it can be disruptive to the native ecosystem,\u201d Parker said, emphasizing that introduced pets can also spread non-native diseases to local wildlife.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A reel-y sharp turn of events. A Pennsylvania boy expected to catch a bass when fishing with his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":264351,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28146,28,30,29,2800,111632,302],"class_list":["post-264350","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-fish","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news","tag-pets","tag-piranhas","tag-us-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264350","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=264350"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/264350\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/264351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=264350"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=264350"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=264350"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}