The red-bellied pacu that Dave Zarnowski caught off Northerly Island on Aug. 7 apparently was the first such caught or captured from Lake Michigan in Illinois.
Lake Michigan fisheries program biologist Steve Robillard finally was done with field work and looked through some records for Lake Michigan:
We have not captured any pacu or piranha in the lake. I also talked to Wayne Brofka, our creel coordinator since 1987, and he has no record of either caught in the lake.