MCPHERSON ? Even the folks at the local bait shop were stumped when Mike Sader came stumbling in with his prized catch.

Sader was fishing at McPherson’s Lakeside Park when he pulled in a curious silver fish, above, with a red underside, unlike anything he had seen before.

“I thought it was a goldfish,” he said.

Nobody at the bait shop could identify it, either. But after examining its teeth and scouring the Internet, Sader is now convinced he caught a red belly piranha, a fish native to South America but also found along the Gulf Coast.

Park supervisor Joe Conde said he has never seen anything like it in 25 years with the parks department. He thinks the fish was a pet that someone wanted to get rid of and discarded in the pond.

Sader said he took the fish to a taxidermist and is having it mounted.

“I wasn’t going to let anyone take my fish,” he said, “because it was the biggest catch that I have ever had.”