10-04-2023, 02:54 PM
(10-04-2023, 02:37 PM)Gone Forever Wrote: [quote pid="1149219" dateline="1696172061"]
As far as making comparisons on catfish caught from different waters, a true kitty connoisseur will take into account such variables as water quality, water temperatures, primary diet, size and age of the fish, etc. All of those things can make a detectable difference in the same fish from the same waters under varying conditions.
Yes, all of those things will make a difference in taste. Caught one once in the St Lawrence Seaway, super clear river water but the main diet was snails and they tasted like it. Awful.
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A lot of folks have the ingrained opinion that all catfish feed only on dead stinky stuff. Actually, they maintain a good clean diet of live stuff...like minnows, crawdads and such wherever the water is clear enough for them to become sight feeders. I have caught cats in Willard on topwater stuff...casting into wiper boils. I have also caught them only five or six feet down on minnows below a bobber in 20 feet of water. And anybody who has trolled cranks at mach 3 in the summer has tales of catfish hitting the same lures they are dragging for wipers or walleyes.
Some who dine on Willard kitties claim they can taste an off flavor resulting from the fish eating a lot of gizzard shad. True, the shad are stinky creatures. But that is mostly in their skin and slime. The flesh of shad is edible and some species are prized as game fish and food fish.
Even in lakes more typically murky...like Utah Lake...the cats live largely on a diet of live prey...like the young of white bass and other species...and crawdads. But for quality eats you will do better to keep the smaller cats and release the bigger ones. The bigger and older they get the more likely you will be to encounter some stronger flavors. Still good and edible, but not as mild. Also, the older a catfish gets the more it accumulate a buildup of objectionable or dangerous water chemistry...like PCBs in Utah Lake. But anything under about 22 inches is usually prime.