The Monster of Martin Mere?

Martin Mere is located north of Ormskirk in West Lancashire, north-west England. It occupies part of a former lake and mire. The complex comprises open water, seasonally flooded marsh and damp, neutral hay meadows overlying deep peat. It's now a wildfowl nature reserve. Some years ago the manager at the site reported seeing something the size of a small car circling just below the waterline. Eye witnesses, there to see the wild fowl, were shocked to see a fully grown swan fighting against something that was trying to pull it under. Several swans were injured or missing so something had to be done to investigate the monster of Martin Mere. The CFZ did an expedition there in 2002 and you can see the full report here:

http://www.cfz.org.uk/expeditions/02martinmere/mere-index.htm

An extract from the report:

Whilst walking around the Mere`s edge Richard came upon a massive fish basking in the shallows. It`s black,oily, scaleless back bore a small dorsal fin . Disturbed the massive animal made off and dove in a tremendous swirl to reappear briefly further out close to a small island.. It dove again in amidst a huge disturbance. It`s length was hard to estimate as only the back broke the surface but if it was attacking swans the team agreed it would have to be around 8 feet long. Though we did not photograph the monster we confirmed it`s existence and are confident that it is infact a wels catfish.

The CFZ have a theory as to how it got into the mere so go and have a read.

Wels catfish are said to be man eaters and grow to huge sizes. Could Wels catfish be another candidate for lake monsters? The thought for the day there and certainly could be a possibility in some lakes.