ML,
My youngsters were much like yours, fat. The hump and deep body near the anal fin are give aways. They are eating, as you said anything they can get in their mouth. I caught one on a rapalla.
This was November last year. They were upwards of seven pounds as of a couple of months ago.
The two downsides I have noticed are, that no plant is safe and they seem to communicate well, it took them a while to start doing so, but around a year old when any fish was caught they stopped biting. The only exception so far has been bottom fishing with cooked shrimp.
Don, the other Thai guy, said he would not stock them again, but didn't elaborate. I think it was the water plant issue.
Bobad, the first one we caught was about 8" long, on a grape, one of my pond rats was wadding and accidently dipped the grape in the water. The pacu inhaled it, scared the you know what out of the kid and he jerked it straight up out of the water, no fight in the water, but the fish and the kid were covered with dust and dirt by the time it got back in the water. Several months later I got the first one on rod and reel and it was as ML describes, it used its body and ran parallel to the shore and with that broad body was a tough fight, when it jumped, well you get the idea.
