That's a bummer about the Dundalk piranha not being a piranha but a kinder, gentler piranha lookalike. It's not the first time a guy thought he caught something special only to discover -- or maybe not -- that he'd caught a lesser, bottom-feeding species.

This was five years ago. My brother-in-law from New Jersey and I went to a river near my in-laws' home in the Poconos to fish for trout. We fished for several hours. I used a fly rod, and Remy used worms. I caught one brown trout and held it up for a moment so Remy could see it from across the river. Remy caught nothing. I got bored and tired and went home.

Remy stayed because, just as I was leaving, he claimed to spot a "school of trout" in a deep pool.

"Are you sure they're trout?" I yelled from the parking lot above the pool where Remy was dunkin' bait. (Generally speaking, trout don't run in "schools," and you rarely see wild ones sharing a feeding lane.)

I don't think Remy heard my question. It was getting late and I had a three-hour drive. Last I saw him, Rem was staring intensely into the pool, fishing rod in one hand, cigar in the other.

Next day I get a phone call from New Jersey: "You shouldn't have left! I caught five!"

Remy was so excited. He had never caught trout before, never mind five. He said he'd cleaned and wrapped the fish in plastic and put them in the freezer at my in-law's house.

The following weekend, back in the Poconos, I opened the freezer to have a look at Remy's catch -- five of the plumpest, slimiest, bottom-feeding, round-of-mouth, mercury-laden suckers you'd ever seen.

My father-in-law and I called Remy to ask if it was OK to grill them up for supper. "Sure," he said. "Knock yourself out."

We buried them in my father-in-law's vegetable garden. The leeks loved it. Unless he reads this blog, Remy is still happily ignorant of the fact that his five "trout" ended up as fertilizer.