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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Jack Clements thought he'd hooked a large bluegill but it turned out to be a 13-inch piranha or piranha-like fish.
Clements, 62, of Provo was fishing in Provo harbor across from the boat rental area Thursday when he caught the fish.
As Clements reached down to take the hook out of its mouth, his son advised him against it.
"My son says, 'You better watch it. That's a piranha, Dad,"' Clements said.
Clements called the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources, which sent an officer to claim it.
As of late Monday, the DWR had not yet determined whether Clements' catch a piranha or a piranha-like fish, such as a pacu, which on occasion have been pulled from Utah Lake and the Jordan River.
"Every few years, it seems like we have someone who catches this kind of fish," said Scott Root, DWR outreach manager.
No matter what it is, the fish likely was dumped into the lake by someone trying to get rid of an illegal fish, he said.
"There's probably not a lot of them in there," Root said.
Clements said that even if the fish turns out to be a piranha, he would not worry about wading in Utah Lake.
"They don't bother you unless you're cut or bleeding or something like that," he said. "The natives in South America swim with them."
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Information from: Deseret Morning News, http://www.deseretnews.com
(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
