Whatcha catchn’?

[Magicman]

 

 
Grandson pulled this 54 pounder in yesterday.  


 
It's one of 5 fish that weighed a total of 201 pounds.  A good day.

[Walnut Beast]

Awesome pictures!

[WV Sawmiller]

Lynn.

   How are they fishing? Trotlines, limblines, jug-fishing, noodling or rod and reel? Nice fish there!

[Magicman]

Mississippi River trot lines.  He said that it was the best trip that they have ever had.  They regularly catch fish and big ones, just not that many.  I think that I am seeing more than one species from the looks of their tails.

It's amazing how good those fillets are.  My original thought was that they would be strong but not so.  

EDIT:  He just sent me a message saying that they were White and Blue cats.

[YellowHammer]

Those were nice ones.  

I caught mine on 14 lb line, and I follow Ray Scott's example of landing nets are strictly forbidden in my boat.  So I got to hand land this big one.  

With my live sonar I can "see" underwater and this particular stump is on a river ledge and had a big school of shad and a few bass on it.  I had thought I had imaged a catfish but I couldn't tell for sure, it might have been a drum.

Either way, it was a lot of fun, and I have talked to more than a few of the big time tournament cat fishermen who travel to these parts to know there are a good number of 80 pounders in these waters.  As much as I'd hate to admit it, I may have to try a little more of this.  

I'm not much of a fish eater, except snapper, so this guy had a free pass to go home.  

[caveman]

Snapper is near the top of my menu.  As much as some people like to toss them back, I really love bass (my favorite freshwater fish).  I'd eat fish everyday if it was still an option.  I don't get to fish as much as I used to.  That was quite some catfish.  MM's people landed some good ones too.   Cold fish for breakfast is one of my favorite leftovers.  

[YellowHammer]

If catfish jumped a little .... I wouldn't leave 'em alone.  They kind of fight like a sluggish shark with a lot of head shaking, a few runs, and a mouth full of teeth.  

My three biggest catfish have all come the exact same way.  Fishing artificials on deep stumps covered with schools of shad or other baitfish.

My fourth biggest, an 18 lb flathead was caught on a deep spinner bait during a night bass tournament.

I can't to eat flathead or yellow cats.  I grilled fillets off one once, and the meat was soft, mushy and mud yellow.  After a couple bites, I tossed the meat back into the river and grilled burgers.

I like channel cat, but flatheads tastes like a big, muddy, cotton ball.  No bueno.  

 



 

[Magicman]

The flesh from these is pure white.  Quite often I will carry a cold filet sandwich to the sawmill for my noon lunch.

[Nebraska]

Local treatment for big cat fish out of the rivers here is to put them in a clean stock tank for a few days and let clean water run in at a trickle to get the muddy taste out.  I think it helps, probably much easier if you have livestock. I had a friend use an old bathtub the same way, worked well until the raccoons found out ....

[doc henderson]

some big fish!

[tule peak timber]

I just "caught" this thread. Great reading last night! Tight lines everyone 8)

[WV Sawmiller]

Robert,

   I don't know what is up with your flathead catfish. We greatly prefer them to channel or blue cats. They won't hit anything but a live bait while a blue or channel will eat a bait that would make a buzzard puke. I had a dead bream on a bush hook on a cypress limb in the Flint River near Albany Ga that was absolutely fuzzy and stinking so bad I decided to just let it fall off and left it on there 2-3 more days then came by one morning and a 7 lb channel cat was on the line and beating the limb in the water. A flathead would never have eaten that bait.

[doc henderson]

That is a great "line" oh WOC!

[doc henderson]

@tule peak timber you always seem to get "reel" when it counts.  "eye let" you make these puns since I hate to be a "drag".  What I myself, felt I meant, ("monofilament") was I thought I might take a "pole" without "baiting" anyone, is what kind a car does you all like to "rod" in?   :D :D :D smile_banjoman

[tule peak timber]

Doc, you really have the "lines" this morning. Very hard to "catch" up with you. You're really fishing for laughs. I guess I'll have to settle for catsup on my fried potatoes at lunch. 

[YellowHammer]

WV,
I have no idea why the flatheads I've caught or tried taste so bad and the meat looks worse.  I've tried them more than once, and the fillets come off the fish with a distinctive mud yellow color, like a Manila envelope, and have an unmistakable odor.  I keep hearing about how good they are, but even Martha remembers the "river" incident and she wouldn't even touch the meat, said it stank up the grill.

At first I thought maybe all big catfish tasted like mud, but I've caught a few smaller channel cats in the 5 lbs range that had white flesh, like in a restaurant, and were good to eat.  I've even raised some in my pond that were good.  The only big cats I ever catch are flatheads, mainly because they take lures and the very few I've cleaned were just big blobs of soft yellow meat.

After the river incident, years later, I caught another one and started to fillet it, and as soon as my knife hit the meat, all I saw was yellow.  I hate to say it, my stomach flipped, but I finished cleaning it anyway and gave it to my brother in law.  I don't eat yellow chicken and I sure ain't gonna eat yellow fish.

I'd be interested to see what color meat your flatheads have straight out of the river?  We have lots of shad here, maybe that's why the fish stink.  I know the one I released the other day, I assume a blue cat, pooped all over my boat, definitely "Ode de Shad" and it stank so bad, I had to pressure wash the boat when I got home.  Even the house cats were throwing up when they smelled it.  The funny thing was I was having a bad day the next day and even texted customsawyer to whine a little bit and said something like "and why do I still smell like catfish!!??, I can't get this slimy stink off me!"

One of life's mysteries I guess.  

[Magicman]

This may answer some of the questions:  Flathead Catfish

[SawyerTed]

Impressive cat fishing going on!   

When we keep catfish we only keep blues.  I, too, find other species either muddy or strong tasting.  

[red]

Hannah Barron would be proud 

[WV Sawmiller]

Robert,

I wonder how the channel and blue catfish caught in the same areas compare to the flatheads you are describing? Our flatheads here typically have a very pink to reddish flesh. I get 4 fillets off each plus the cheeks off the heads. I skin the fish, rip the belly open and gut them then cut the belly off first one then the other side then I fillet the sides off. I have a dear friend I usually save the belly fillets for off any fish over about 15 lbs as he loves them. I slice them into about 1/2-3/4 inch thick fingers and fry them brown in a seasoned corn meal/flour coating and fry them brown in corn oil. We are particular about undercooked fish so make sure the cooked flesh is firm.

I saw in the article from MM the flesh is one of the preferred catfish so again I wonder what your fish are eating and the conditions where yours are raised. I have never seen any yellow fillets off any of my fish. The flatheads are pink and the blue or channel are white although the belly fillets on channel or blues may have a little thin black lining.

I thought it was interesting in the article about the flatheads not being a good candidate for aquaculture because they are so cannibalistic. My son once pulled up a 5 lb flathead that was skinned by the larger flathead who had swallowed it. I don't know how big that one was but I want him! He fought real hard then spit out the 5 lber. He was never hooked - just holding the other fish in his mouth/belly.

EDIT/ADD:-ON:

I have friends who said they fried some bone-in flathead catfish steaks that had a strong taste but I have always filleted them and I see from your earlier post you mention fillets so the presence of the backbone should not be a factor.

 When I was a kid we never filleted the catfish we caught. I remember Dad freezing and taking some to our local butcher to cut into steaks on his band saw. They cooked easily and the bone popped right out. When I moved here and started catching much larger fish I started filleting them to save freezer space and I still wonder why we never filleted them earlier as it is not that hard to do.

[YellowHammer]

That flatheads I've tried to eat were generally from impoundment on the Tennessee river, such as Guntersville, Elk River, Wheeler.

They are always put in live wells and cleaned immediately.  

I have been doing some reading today that yellow meat in catfish is fatty, and has a strong taste, and I watched a couple videos where they said to cut all the yellow meat off catfish because it tasted muddy.

Some of the videos showed very white meat, and definitely not what I've seen.  Maybe or Alabama flatheads are just fat and so have a yellow meat.

[WV Sawmiller]

Robert,

  Yeah that is real different than the color of the meat off our flatheads. It sounds like where you've caught them has plenty of fresh running water and not stagnant so that should not be the cause. Our flathead fillets are never white like the channel or blues and always have a pretty pink color. Are the channel and blue cats from the same area good eating?

  Dad said one time he stayed at a fish camp at the mouth of the Suwannee River and put out bush hooks and Mom was with him on that trip. He said the catfish they caught (all blue or channel) were very fat and Mom complained about that but he could not figure a way to just catch the skinny ones.

EDIT/Add-on:



 
These are flathead fillets on top from a recent catch.

[caveman]

I've cleaned bass, specks and even some channel catfish that had an orange tint to their flesh.  These fish came out of really tanic water from the Withlacoochee River or barrow pits in the Green Swamp.  The fish tasted like they should have, good.  The skin on the bass and specks was almost black.

I've used lemon juice and toothpaste to try to get some fishy smells of my hands. The slime of the sail cats (saltwater species) is the snottiest, nastiest slime of any fish I've ever encountered.  Tarpon and sharks will eat them-everything is bait. 

[Magicman]

The Grandson and his buddies went back to The River yesterday:


 
The largest in the center weighed 62 pounds.  The other two were in the 40's.

[KEC]

I just read in the "Trappers Post" magazine about a beaver trapper who skins out beaver tails to sell the tail skin to be tanned. He also cuts the fatty grisle into small pieces to use as ice-fishing bait on jigs.  Any of you guys ever heard of this? I wonder if catfish would go for it.