Instagrammer catches river monster the size of a dog with her bare hands

Instagram is full of self-proclaimed influencers. Typically young and attractive women, they attract legions of followers with their assets, then rake in sizable amounts of cash from brands keen to get their products out there.

But one popular young lady on Instagram has a much more unusual claim to Insta-fame. She caught a river monster the size of a dog with her bare hands.

Yes, you read that right.

Twenty-three-year-old Hannah Barron captured the water equivalent of a rottweiler while hunting in Illinois and shared her jaw-dropping catch - literally - with her 500K+ Instagram followers.

In a video, Barron can be seen capturing the animal wearing nothing but hot pants and a swimsuit while accompanied by two friends.

Watch it for yourself below:

The 23-year-old, who has come under fire for sharing pictures of herself with trophy catches on social media before, then let the animal, a huge catfish, go.

Barron caught the catfish using a technique known as "noodling". This involves a person putting one of their arms into a fish's mouth and then capturing it by grabbing its gills with their free hand.

Needless to say, catfish don't have teeth.

One impressed Facebook user said of the footage: "What a huge fish, if one of those bites me I don't know what I would do."

Another wrote: "The woman is calm and smiling despite having that huge animal clinging to her arm."

Animal lovers, however, slammed Barron's catch, with one remarking "shame on you".

Recounting the incident on Instagram, Barron wrote:

"Took me 3 times going down to grab her. She was so fast biting me, either biting the side of my arm or swallowing me up past my wrist every time, that it was hard to grab her.

"She was VERY aggressive to be such a big fish. When I finally got my arm between her gills and her gill plate, Charles moved the gate, and I STILL had a hard time getting her out of the hole. This is when I realized just how big she was.

"I remember being underwater with her kicking to get to the top. Most of the fight was underwater where the video can’t show, then feeling Dad pull the rope when he knew I had the fish."

Others commented on pictures of the 23-year-old with animals she has killed, like the one above, calling her "sick".