One of Cagayan de Oro’s legends which persists to this day tells of the Big Fish that inhabits the Cagayan River.
Even as early as the Spanish colonial period, tales of the denizen of the deep abounded, such as one which relates how the priests from St Augustine Church once took care of it before it eventually ate one of them.
According to the most prevalent versions about it circulating in the city, the great fish rests on a hollow beneath the church and when it moves it causes tremors or earthquakes that shake the earth. There are tales of underground river caverns through which it swims, reportedly reaching Macabalan from the cathedral grounds.
However, the legend invariably links it to the St Augustine Church, and in more recent times, to a bas relief sculpture on a wall of the cathedral’s St. Joseph’s Garden.
This bas relief sculpture obviously illustrates the Bible verse describing Jonah being swallowed by a large fish is Jonah 1:17, “Now the Lord had prepared a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.” While often depicted as a whale, the text refers to a “great fish”.
Bas-relief is a sculptural technique in which the figures or designs are only slightly raised above the background surface. This form of sculpture creates a subtle depth, allowing for detailed and intricate designs without the pronounced projection of high relief sculpture.
Thus, locals and visitors can observe how the Golden Fish motif is celebrated during Cagayan de Oro’s August 27 Civic Military Parade & Golden Float Competition, and its August 28 Religious & Fluvial Procession on Cagayan River.
The veracity of these tales notwithstanding, we surfed the internet to check if indeed there are existing fishes as big as Cagayan’s legendary golden giant and here are some what we found, with a little help from Steve Ryan of in-fisherman.com.
Mekong Giant Catfish
The Guinness Book of World Records lists the Mekong giant catfish as Earth’s largest freshwater fish. This species (Pangasianodon gigas), which grows as fast as a bull and looks a bit like a refrigerator, grows up to 3 meters in length and can weigh up to 300 kilograms.
Called the “king of fish” in Cambodia, “buffalo fish” in Thailand and Laos, and “blubber fish” in Vietnam, this catfish is well known throughout Southeast Asia. Only the caviar-producing sturgeon, goliath catfish of the Amazon and a few species of poorly understood freshwater sting rays rival the Mekong giant catfish in size. In Europe, the Wels catfish (Silurus glanis) reportedly once grew to a monstrous 5 meters in length, but today a 2-meter specimen is considered remarkable.
Chao Phraya Giant Catfish
Chao Phraya giant catfish pack speed, agility, and power and are reported to grow over 500 pounds in the wild. Also known as the “Dog eating Catfish” it’s a predatory freshwater monster fish native to the Chaophraya and Mekong basins in Thailand. A member of the Pangasiidae (sharks and catfishes) family of fish, it preys on small fish, crustaceans and even animal carcasses.
It is a voracious freshwater monster fish which inhabits the upper layers of some of the wildest rivers of Thailand. The Chaophraya Catfish in Thailand actively hunts live prey fish in the upper layers where it engulfs prey fish with its huge and cavernous mouth which is equipped with coarse grasping pads. (bigfishesoftheworldblogspot.com)
Himalayan Goonch
The Goonch Catfish, also infamous as the man-eating “giant devil catfish”, is a terrifying river monster with sharp jaws and large eyeballs. Although there are a number of species in the Bagarius genus, the largest of them (Bagarius yarelli) can reach weights of over 250 pounds and is found primarily in India, Nepal, and Bangladesh. (in-fisherman.com.)
It is unlike a typical fish, since it has a lengthy body and a massive flattened head with three pairs of barrels. Locals claim that the goonch catfish has attacked and devoured people in India. According to locals, they demand greater attention because of their gigantic size and unusual man-hunting mentality. Despite the fact that these fish are famous for their man-eating abilities, there is still very little known about them. (The Himalayan Outback)
Eurasian Wels
Wels are large, voracious catfish of the family Siluridae, native to large rivers and lakes from central Europe to western Asia. One of the largest catfishes, as well as one of the largest of European freshwater fishes, the wels attains a length of about 4.5 m (15 feet) and a weight of 300 kg (660 pounds).
It is a long-bodied, scaleless fish, usually mottled greenish to blackish with a pale belly and dark fins. It has a long anal fin, a small dorsal fin near the large, flattened head, and six mouth barbels, two of which, on the upper jaw, are very long. A nocturnal predator, the wels feeds on fish, frogs, water birds, and occasional small mammals. It is an important food fish and a fine sport fish. (Brittanica)Amazon Piraiba
Piraiba — This whale of a catfish is the strongest and largest of all the Amazon catfish species. They regularly grow to 7 feet in length and are pure muscle from nose to tail. The IGFA record stands at 341 pounds, but credible evidence places its top-end size well into the 400-pound range.
They have a mouth big enough to swallow a feeder pig whole, so don’t hesitate to use baits as large as you can while keeping them down in current. Their crazy long whiskers that can stretch more than 6 feet from tip to tip on a large fish, and they have a propensity to free-jump in low-light conditions. Watching a 250-pound catfish breach the water’s surface on a still morning in the Amazon is like one of those Jane Goodall gorillas-in-the-mist moments. (in-fisherman.com.)
Philippine Catfish
The largest catfish species known to inhabit Philippine waters is the Mekong catfish (Pangasianodon hypophthalmus), also known as the iridescent shark or striped catfish, which can reach a maximum size of 130 cm (4.3 feet) in length and 44 kg (97 lbs) in weight.
So indeed, there are fishes around the world as large or even larger than Cagayan River’s favorite pet that tell us there could be more to the tall tales than meets the eye.
Although the river’s depth and course have since changed over the centuries, even more so recently when Severe Tropical Storm Sendong, and Typhoons Pablo and Vinta rampaged through its water during a six year span (2011-2017), it’s quite possible that the siltation these three weather disturbances piled on the riverbed and man-made changes in its ecosystem brought by illegal mining and quarrying have driven the great fishes upstream to seek deeper and cleaner waters.
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