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[#0000FF]Nice work. Happy kid...happy dad.
PS...the catfish is a female. You'd think you would know the difference between boys and girls by now. I know. Fish is differment.
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[#0000FF]Beat not thyself about thy head and shoulders. This time of year the lines of male/female catfish identity become blurred at times. And judging gender based strictly upon color is not always valid.
Males are almost always darker than females. But during the spawn they go from grey to black...and the lips become even more puffy. Howsomever, a lot of female cats...especially larger ones...will also become darker and are easily misidentified as males.
Most cats over 20 inches that show mostly olive color can be safely assumed to be female. The other indicators are a head equal to or narrower than the width of the body at the dorsal fin. And, unless the fish is in poor health, the belly on a female will be heavier...even without eggs.
But, if an olive colored female has a dark face and head, she is coloring up to spawn. That confuses some folks. Here is a picture of one.
[inline "BLACK FACE MAMA.jpg"]
Now, bigger females...close to spawning...may turn all dark...dark enough to look like males. But again, the shape of the head and the heftier body are good indicators that the fish is not male. Here is a picture of the 29 1/2 incher I caught in May.
[inline "BIGGUN 2.jpg"]
And here is a picture of the 30 incher caught recently by BLK's grandson...CatCarson. It was posted as being a male...but it is visibly not.
[inline "CAT CARSON.jpg"]
Here is a picture of the 26 inch male I caught last week at Lindon. The head is very much wider than the body.
[inline "DARK DADDY.jpg"]
And this picture shows the exaggerated lips of the big ol' daddy cats.
[inline "DADDY CAT.JPG"]
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[#0000FF]"In depth" research is always a good way to gather more data...and more fish.
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