How to hold catfish

[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]Hope you recover from your oversight and your overexposure soon. Ya gotta respect the sun. If not now, you will when the doctor asks if you can pronounce "melanoma". I lost a good friend to that insidious cancer last year.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Happy to hear you are planning to expand your fishing horizons. There are a lot of fun opportunities in Utah for anyone who is not stuck in "trout mode".[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Don't worry about being flamed or beat up by asking questions on this board...no matter how stupid, inane, rookie or misdirected. We have all "been there, done that"...and we got the rash, the T-shirts and the pics on the board to prove it. Much better to realize an area in which you could use some instruction, and ask for it up front, than to suffer the consequences of being to shy (stupid) to seek out the right info. We all make enough bonehead mistakes, even when we supposedly know the drill.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]You will find a lot of fellow kitty chasers on this board, as you have no doubt already discovered. Shouldn't be too hard for you to find a couple of willing fishing buddies to tag along with and pick up some pointers. Cataholics tend to like company.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]Since I have a pretty good collection of kitty pics, I will post a few here that will help illustrate what is tough to describe otherwise. One of my favorite sayings is "How do you describe the taste of salt, to someone who has never tasted salt (without saying salty)?[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]First, the visible difference between males and females is most proounced during the spawn, when males turn real dark blue or even black. The females usually remain a tan to olive color, and many are very light with spots on their sides. Females also tend to have heads that are no wider than the widest point of their bodies, whereas males often have heads that are wider than any other point on their bodies. See the pic below. Disregard the can in the male's mouth. He was just celebrating being "hooked up" with all those lovely ladies.[/#0000ff]

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[#0000ff]You are wise to ask advice on properly holding catfish. Bullheads (mudders) and smaller channel cats have nasty spines on both the pectoral (side) fins and the dorsal (back) fin. If you grab them the wrong way, you can get a painful perforation. Larger channels tend to have their spiny fins worn down by years of rooting in the rocks...both for food and during spawning. Those hard spines can still bruise you and they can tear up nets and baskets if you do not clip them (only if you plan to keep them).[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]There are two main ways to grasp a kittyfish if you want to subdue them during hook removal or picture taking. For most fish up to about 4 or 5 pounds, you can use the belly hold. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]This consists of timing your grab so that you can trap the spines between your fingers on one side and over your thumb on the other side...with the dorsal being safely out of your way on the opposite side. (see the pics). [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]If your hands are not large enough or strong enough, consider using one of the Berkeley Lip Grippers (see pic).[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]The other hold, to avoid injuring either you or the fish, is to grip them from the top...in front of the fins and just behind the head. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]A strong grip will hold the fish securely while you remove the hook. This is a good hold for releasing fish. It is less likely to result in a "spining" if the fish flops during the release. Bullheads are especially adept at flipping as they are released and leaving you with a painful reminder of your brief encounter.[/#0000ff]

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[#0000ff]Again, if you plan to keep any cats, it is a good idea to use a pair of sidecutters or to simply snap off the spines at the junction of the spine and body. That makes it much easier to grab and handle them later, and can save some wear and tear on both you and your gear. If one of the spines on a large strong catfish gets caught in a fish basket they can rip it up by rolling and thrashing. They can do the same to human flesh.[/#0000ff]
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[pennyfarmer]

Great pics and description.

I have a story about nasy cat finnings. The night before the ship I was on was going to be deployed some friends were on the fantail doing a bit of fishing someone caught what I remember was a really large Red Drum??. Anyway we all got the fishing bug real fast. In a mater of minutes the fantail was busy with sailors trying to catch their own monster. Some of the guys were not familiar with catfish which happens to be the BULK of the catch in the Cooper River. Well there were a few of us tasked with helping the others with the catfish. One friend brought in a catfish and while the "hook getter outter" was taking the hook out the fish rolled and stuck a fin ALL THE FREAKING WAY THROUGH HIS FINGER. I thought he was joking when he said the fish stuck him. Well when I saw what had happened I ran to the shop and got some dykes to cut the fin, needless to say he would not let me anyplace near his wound. So I go get the corpsman and wake him up to tell him "A sailor has a fish stuck to his hand". The corpsman cut the fin off the fish and pulled the fin all the way through. Yes folks his finger had worked all the way to the body of the fish, and yes the corpsman did exactly what I told him I was going to do. I guess when you have Hospital Corpsman in your job title people trust you more.
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[cat_man]

Wow great story pennyfarmer! You know what the best part was? The part when you ran to the shop to get some dykes to cut the fin!!! [cool]
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What I don't get is 1) What are a bunch of dykes doing in the shop? and 2) Why didn't you just cut the fin yourself? lol[cool]
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[pennyfarmer]

1)You have never been in the Navy so you would not understand how many dykes they really do have. <---- Story for another day and appropriate forum. []

2) The guy would not let me near his finger. It was funny cause he would show me but that was as far as that went, especially when he learned of my intentions of cutting the fin and then pulling it straight through.

Funny people have no problem with the thing coming out the way it came in (much more painful and difficult way) but if you explain you are going to pull it out the way is was going they just about faint.
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