TALE OF THE MONSTER
CATFISH
(see also the legend
of Ole Blue)
I have traveled 48 of the 50 United States, and at every lake and large
river I have heard the following story-see if it sounds familiar:
"There
are some BIG catfish in this (insert lake or river)! They sent some divers
down a while back to (insert find a body, fix a bridge, examine the dam)
and they came up saying that there were catfish as big as (insert pianos,
buicks, bulldozers). They were so scared they refused to go back
down again!"
As fishing lore goes this story is as universal as it gets. But
how much of it is true? Here are some interesting catfish truths:
-
Blue and Flathead Catfish in the North America can grow to over 150 pounds.
Since these catfish take a very long time to grow this big, a 150 pound
catfish is likely near a century or more old!
-
There are documented cases in Asia and Europe of catfish (the Wels catfish
notably) over 700lbs!
-
If a lake is formed by damming a large river, a catfish in that lake could
easily be older than the lake itself.
-
Since big cats are slow growers, once a large catfish is removed from a
body of water, it may take a human lifetime before it can be replaced (A
VERY GOOD REASON TO RELEASE LARGE CATS-take a picture and let it swim!).
In the past 30 years there has been a drastic downturn in the numbers of
big cats due to over fishing, and Santee-Cooper and the Mississippi Rivers
are good examples of this.
-
It is not a good idea to eat a catfish over 30lbs. DDT, PCBs, and
Mercury have accumulated in these fish over their lifetimes, making them
not the best eating choice. A better alternative for a catfish dinner
is to catch a limit of 1 to 6 pound channel cats or bullheads-they taste
better anyhow.
Bottom line-while every lake or river may not
be able to claim a diver sighting of a monster cat, the truth may be that
a beast catfish might very well be lurking in the depths of some big water
near you!
