It could be a hoax. It could be a sturgeon or maybe an eel. It could also be as what the most dedicated hunter believes, a catfish.
Steve Feltham, 52-year-old, who has spent a little more than half his life trying to find the Loch Ness monster, is a Guinness World Record holder for the longest continuous Nessie search. He is positive that Nessie is a giant catfish.
"I have to be honest. I just don't think that Nessie is a prehistoric monster," said Feltham.
His speculations find the Wels catfish to be the best candidate that could give a face to the long searched-for beast. Fetlham however clarifies this and says it really isn't the final explanation, but it "ticks most of the boxes with sightings."
People have pictured the Loch Ness monster in their minds in different versions, but a popular characteristic would be that it's fairly huge.
Though rarely, the Wels catfish can grow up to about 13 feet in height, and can be as heavy as 880 pounds. It can survive for more or less 30 decades. About 650 feet deep in some places, the largest was found to be around 37 kilometers long.
Feltham believes that the catfish, native to both central and eastern Europe, might have been introduced by the Victorians to the deep freshwater lake to give themselves a good sport in catching the fish. While there are no records of Wels catfish released into the Scottish Highlands lake, Feltham does not steer away from that possibility.
He further notes that if that was done in the late Victorian era, the Wels catfish would have reached maturity by the 1930s, incidentally the time when the Loch Ness monster craze started.
Nessie was first said to have been seen as far back as the sixth century, when the Irish monk St. Columba claimed to have banished the water beast into the River Ness. The catfish would have been introduced to the loch long after.
In 2003, a BBC-funded research concluded that there was most likely nothing in there. The research looked deeply and extensively into the lake, using 600 sonar beams, as well as satellite tracking.
As positive as he is that Nessie may be a giant catfish, Feltham still hopes the Loch Ness monster will turn out to be something "far more exciting than a catfish."
In 1991, Feltham gave up his house, his job and his girlfriend in exchange for a caravan by the lake shore, in his search for Nessie. He is firm in saying he will not give up searching.
