Many of our local waters are populated with the invasive, algae-eating, armor-plated catfish species known as Plecostomus (from the Greek for "folded mouth").  They apparently originated, like many invasive species, from home aquaria. It is pretty rare to catch one without deliberately snagging it with a weighted treble hook. But today this guy ate my lipless crankbait, or I assume he did, since, as you can see, he's hooked in the lip. Another surprise was that on the very next cast I caught another pleco with the same lure! But the second puppy was foul hooked in the dorsal fin. I found I needed a towel to hold these guys, because the tough overlapping armor plating opened and closed as they wiggled side to side, pinching my skin in the process.

 

 

Plecos are so cool. I traded a big one in to a pet store

for some other fish back when we had aquariums.

 

But talk about an unexpected catch!

Amazing!  When I was a kid, my friend had one in his aquarium, but it was only about 2 1/2 inches.  I didn't know they grew that big.  Thanks for sharing.

Hillsborough river near Tampa is infested with them. They are all over the place. You can look down at a concrete boat ramp and usually see dozens of them. Certain sections of the river are worse than others.

Wow ~ Cool coloring

Talk about By-Catch . . . .

Pretty interesting.

A-Jay

Nice pleco. I have caught several plecos as bycatch while fishing for other species. 

On 2/16/2018 at 4:11 PM, davecon said:

Hillsborough river near Tampa is infested with them. They are all over the place. You can look down at a concrete boat ramp and usually see dozens of them. Certain sections of the river are worse than others.

Same here on the Caloosahatchee. Never had one take a lure, but foul hooked several with bottom running lures. Supposed to be excellent eating. I read that they are best cooked whole and broken apart when time to serve. Obviously you have to gut-it first.