Fishing Forum

My dad and brother were fishing the snake river over in oregon and pulled this beast out along with several other 20 to 24 lb fish this one weighed 36 pounds 3 ounces.
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holy buckets Batman! That's a bigarse cat there!

Are those channels, or something like flatheads, or blues? Nice fish - bet they fight like crazy.

Wow, that is at least 24 pounds heavier than I have seen caught on The Snake River in Idaho.
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All the ones they caught this trip were flatheads.
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That is awesome. Here are a couple of pics from my home state, Alabama. This one is the new state record blue cat - 120 pounds.

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This is a mess my friend caught. A bunch of flatheads and a few blues. Biggest was 25-30 pounds.

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Dang that one in the back of the truck is unreal. here is another picture of the same fish with my dad holding it and another pic of one my brother caught in the same area last year.
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Those are some very nice fish. I wish we had some flatheads and blues here in Utah.
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Question for those of you who have eaten one of those big cats. When I was a teen, we fished below the dam at Paduca Ky, and caught a few in the 15 to 20 lb range. We fried one up the first time and it was so strong and greasy, that after that, we didn't try and eat anything over 4-5 lbs. I know that still holds true for Ut. Lake, Willard, etc., any thing over 4-5 lbs gets a pic and returned. So when I see a mess of 20 -50 lb cats, I wonder what they do with them. Edumacate me please !!! What is the method used to make these palatable ?????

All of those are beautiful fish !!!

asked my brother the same question and he said the last big one he caught tasted just as good or better than the smaller ones. he generally fries all of his catfish. Also he bleeds them big or small and trims off all yellow or dark meat to reduce fishyness.
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[quote Bama_Boy]Those are some very nice fish. I wish we had some flatheads and blues here in Utah.[/quote

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[quote wyfisher]My dad and brother were fishing the snake river over in oregon and pulled this beast out along with several other 20 to 24 lb fish this one weighed 36 pounds 3 ounces.[/quote]

Holy moley that thing is ridiculously big...
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[cool][#0000ff]It is not always true that bigger fish are not good eating. It will vary by species, water chemistry, diet of the fish and other factors...not the least is method of preparation.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]If the big fish you caught in KY were channel cats, I can understand the bad experience. Channels are definitely better when smaller. But both blue cats and flatheads are quite good even in jumbo sizes. You just need to bleed them out and then fillet them...and cut the fillets into "fish and chips" size pieces. I particularly like the meaty "belly strip" on a big flathead. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I have caught and eaten both flatheads and blues in several parts of the country. Biggest I have eaten was probably a 50 pound flathead...and it was great. Just like eating fried butter...with a nice crust. While living in Arizona I caught grundles of flatheads from under 10 pounds to over 30 pounds. Most of them I caught on light to medium tackle while fishing for bass or crappies...on lures. They eat mostly live foods...crawdads, fish, worms, etc. And they prefer clean and moving water. So the fish I caught were all from a great environment and they were all great on the table.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Flatheads and blues grow bigger faster. If you catch them from clean flowing water, where they have a good diet, they grow fast and get much bigger at an early age than the same size channel cat. So a bigger fish is not always old.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Here's a pic of a 27# flathead I caught below Horseshoe Dam near Phoenix. Got it on a small jig and 6# line, while fishng for crappies. Took a while to convince it to join me in my tube.[/#0000ff]
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That probably provided you with another opportunity to ski behind your hooked fish[laugh] But not to hijack the thread that is a nice cat. I have never hooked into anything bigger than about 15 and at 15 they can pull pretty good. Sounds like a fun trip. I mistakenly though blues were all a southern area fish. Never gave much thought to catfish in Oregon or the Snake River.
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[cool][#0000ff]Both flatheads and blues can be found well up into the cold midwest waters. Blue cats are known to bite all winter and that's when some of the biggest are caught. But flatheads are wimps and they go dormant in the winter...laying on the bottom of the deeper holes and accumulating a layer of sediment until they warm up and wake up in the spring.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Idaho has put flatheads in several areas of the Snake river. I have long wished for them in Utah Lake. They DO eat the heck out of carp...but would also jump on the Junies. That's a no no so we don't get flatheads. But if you talk to some of the old goobers around Utah Lake you can hear tales of giant flatheads that always break your line...and the hundred pounders caught (and released) by the carp seiners. Don't ever dispute one of those stories unless you can duck quick or run fast. They is serious about their beliefs.[/#0000ff]
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Yeah I had a guy fishing out there tell me he had a nice blue on a stringer. It was a channel, happened to be one of the more blue colored males and it was a nice fish probably in the 9-10 lb range but it wasnt a blue. He got pretty upset when I told him it looked like a male channel to me...I shut up, who am I to spoil his belief that he caught a blue catfish from Utah Lake.
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[cool][#0000ff]Happens all the time. I had a similar experience only the guy swore his big headed male channel cat was a flathead. He was ready to put a whuppin' on me...even though he was about half my size.[/#0000ff]
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That's an OK approach. I had a guy tell me he just caught a huge lake trout out of Bountiful Pond a few weeks ago. He showed me what was obviously a planted brood rainbow without a fin on her body, pushing 5 lbs it looked like to me.

I just congratulated him....


That's a heck of a catfish...
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I heard the river was low, but holy cow... that is low. Nice fish.
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