OT-Big Fish

[Bullethead 12]

I'm currently watching "River Monsters" on Animal Planet. This week's episode is about the Wels catfish, which apparently lives all over Europe, both naturally and where it's been recently introduced. Monster thing, up to 7-8 feet long at least, perhaps bigger, and able to pull folks under.

 

Any of our Euro anglers ever land a big one of those? They make our garfish seem pretty tame

[Wels 2]

Hello Bullethead,

thanks, i know of some Catfish specimens even bigger than that .. biggest live in the Danube river (Donau), and are locally called "Waller", but it is just a bigger and well-fed species of Silurius.

It can reach a lengh of 3 meters, and 250 kilograms of weight, and become a hundred years old. It feeds on smaller fish, crayfish, frogs and small mammals ..

http://www.spinningista.eu/lust-auf-donauwaller.html

http://www.clipfish.de/video/952639/riesen-wels-drill/

The biggest one i ever got was in Scotland, and it was only about 2 feet lol.

 

Greetings,

"Catfish"

 

and no i'm not that heavy, or thick lol

[Bullethead 12]

I was wondering if this was where you'd gotten the name :).

 

It's a scary fish, that's for sure. The show I was watching was filmed in the Ebro river in spain, and they caught a 7-ft/75kg specimen, althought they say they get bigger. I think the biggest on recent record is from the Po in Italy. Apparently, the fish was introduced in many places and now folks are getting afraid to go in the water.

 

I don't blame them. In Texas, there are many large, artificial lakes used as reservoirs and coolant sources for power plants. Part of the deal for building was recreational boating and fishing, so they're all well-stocked with big fish. I recall about 25 years ago, a kid of about 8 was swimming in one near where I lived and a big catfish tried to eat him. The fish had no hope of actually eating him, because it was only about 60 pounds, smaller than the kid. However, it got one of the kid's legs down its throat and would have drowned him had the kid not been wearing water wings. Adults dragged both kid and fish out of the water and the whole thing made the news for a few days. The kid's thigh was all scuffed up from the sandpaper-like "teeth" of the fish, but otherwise he was OK except I doubt he'll ever go swimming again in his life :).

 

These 60-pounders are the biggest you normally catch. However, there are persistent rumors that they get much bigger down in the deep water by the dams, and that scuba divers have actually been eaten by them in various lakes. A friend of mine swears he spotted several 8-10-footers lying side-by-side on the bottom like logs, which is why he no longer dives in lakes.

 

I've always wanted to put this to the test. This "River Monsters" show is never going to land a true giant because they only fish using salt-water poles and bait no more than 1 foot long. You need BIG bait to catch a big fish. I propose renting a towtruck, using an entire goat or hog carcass for bait, and a modified boat anchor for a hook. Park the truck on the dam and let out the cable, using a boat to carry the end out over the deep spot. Then reel it in after a couple of days and see what you've got :)

[UK_Widowmaker 571]

The Elbo is a fantastic river..full of massive Carp and Catfish..and on my list of 'must go and fish' places

[Cameljockey 3]

When I was a kid we used to spend a lot of time in the Kingsland, Llano, and Buchanan Dam, Texas area around Lake Buchanan and Lake Lyndon B. Johnson, Northwest of Austin. A lot of folks around there hang catfish skulls on their fences, barns etc and you should see the size of some of them. I have seen them 18+ inches in width. We used to walk onto Buchanan Dam and feed the smaller ones who would come to the surface. Even the smaller ones were large enough to swallow a slice of bread in one gulp. I always said it was a shame that we couldn't fish off of the dam, and you couldn't get close enough to the dam in a boat. And yes Bullethead, I've heard all of the rumors of catfish almost as big as a small car, large enough to see humans as food, but I really and truly doubt that. They do get large though.

As scary as they are, they are virtually harmless to humans, unlike the denizens of the waters here in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Anyone from around here will tell you that huge catfish is nothing compared to GATORS!

 

CJ

[Hauksbee 103]

And yes Bullethead, I've heard all of the rumors of catfish...large enough to see humans as food, but I really and truly doubt that.

 

Still...I don't think I'll be swimming in those waters.

[Bullethead 12]

And yes Bullethead, I've heard all of the rumors of catfish almost as big as a small car, large enough to see humans as food, but I really and truly doubt that. They do get large though.

 

AFAIK, there is no absolute size limit on the growth of most fish. If you feed them enough and they don't sick, they just keep on growing. But the bigger they get, the more food they need, and eventually they reach a point where food big enough to be worth the effort to catch is too infrequently encountered for them to grow any bigger. So in theory, you could have truly monstrous catfish. However, I figure this practical limit kicks in at no more than about 6-8 feet long in the wild, even if you could grow one bigger in a tank.

 

As scary as they are, they are virtually harmless to humans, unlike the denizens of the waters here in South Carolina, Georgia, and Florida. Anyone from around here will tell you that huge catfish is nothing compared to GATORS!

 

Oh yeah, here in Louisiana we've got gators out the wazoo. Nobody swims in the bayous and few walk their banks....

 

For a long time, I was a volunteer fireman here, so I had to deal with gators more than I wanted to. One of our stations was near a patch of swamp, and not infrequently a big gator would be napping on the driveway in front of the engine bays, soaking up heat from the concrete. The chief would ask us why we took so long to get the fire, and we'd say it took us 5 minutes of yelling and poking with our pike poles to get the alligator out of way of the truck :).

 

The road to the ferry landing at the little town here is about 1 mile long from the River to the town, with several HARD 90^ turns in it (not really curves, but corners). There's a dive of a bar at the landing, and every couple of months some drunk heading home at closing time misses the last 90^ coming into town, which is at the end of a quarter-mile straightaway. When this happens, they go flying out into an old borrow pit created when they were building up the roadbed, but which is always full of water now. This is known as the "Alligator Pond", because it's PACKED with gators of various sizes. These gators are pretty big, too, because the local vets dump the carcasses of euthanized, unclaimed cats and dogs in there, and there's a restaurant adjacent to the pond, too, with full garbage cans.

 

Anyway, if the people are unlucky, the water's high or the car lands upside down, and they drown. If they're lucky, the water's relatively low and their car stays right-side up, so they live. Then the sit there the rest of the night, all smashed up in water up to their chins, until the sun comes up and somebody spots them and calls the fire department. And if they're really lucky, somebody sees the wreck happen and calls right then. All the time they're in there, they're being circled by hungry gators.

 

I can't tell you how many folks I fished out of that pond. Chest-deep, NASTY water full of all kinds of evil microbes, bottomless mud, and scads of big, hungry gators that weren't bothered by human activity. Plus the odd cottonmouth and snapping turtle, just for variety. And we had to lug the Jaws of Life, a backboard, and all that junk out there and actually somehow manage to use it. Meanwhile, the whole embankment above was manned by a dozen or so deputies armed with rifles, just in case a gator came too close. To be honest, I was always more worried about being shot in the back than being eaten, but only by a little . And then, of course, I'd have dysentery for the next week, taking antibiotics that I couldn't mix with alcohol.

 

I'm glad I'm too old and gimpy to do that anymore....

[ONETINSOLDIER 2]

http://www.atlanticanglers.com/forum/attac...ong-catfish.jpg

 

yeah, they do get that big

[Rooster89 0]

http://www.atlanticanglers.com/forum/attac...ong-catfish.jpg

 

yeah, they do get that big

 

Isn't that one of the giant catfish from Vietnam or Laos? I was watching "Monster Quest" and they had the giant catfish on there, they interviewed a local and apperantly her young nephew of about 2 or 3 years old was eaten whole by one.

 

They also had your Alligator Gar on the show Bullethead. They really are monsters. They kind of remind me of a silvery northern pike, pumped up on super steriods! Oh and with an alligator head.

 

And they also had a man who claims to have hooked a 14 foot lake trout. He got it up to the boat, battling it on 20 pound test line for 6 hours! He knew it was about 14ft long because it was the length of his boat. Once he got it to the side of the boat though, the trout made one last break and snapped the line and the pole broke in 3 pieces. His friend, who took turns with the pole with him for the 6 hours, confirms the event. They were in a completely unfished, large lake in Canada.

 

PS. Jesus Bullethead, Id say youre going for Nessie with that setup.

 

-Rooster

[Bullethead 12]

Isn't that one of the giant catfish from Vietnam or Laos?

 

Yup, that's a pic of the Mekong catfish they caught in Viet Nam a year or 2 ago. IIRC, that particular one was the heaviest fish of any type ever caught in fresh water, although not the longest. That was a big specimen, though. They get big like the other catfish we've been discussing, but most don't get that big.

 

They also had your Alligator Gar on the show Bullethead. They really are monsters. They kind of remind me of a silvery northern pike, pumped up on super steriods! Oh and with an alligator head.

 

Oh bah, the poor ol' garfish might look like a nightmare, but it's harmless. Even the biggest ones can't eat anything more than a foot or 2 long. Like the vast majority of predatory fish, they don't and can't bite chunks off of big things, but can only swallow whole things much smaller than themselves. That said, however, the gar CAN hurt you quite badly, IF you mess with it. It's got lots of wicked teeth, and even brushing against one's side can slice you up on the sharp edges of their armor-like scales. But not even a 10-footer would think any human was small enough to eat, so they won't bother you at all. Just don't try to get your hook out of a living gar's mouth, and don't aggravate them if you're swimming with them, or you'll be sorry :yes:

 

So why all the deadly hardware and armor? Well, they need the teeth to grasp struggling prey, and they grow up in a rough neighborhood. All those alligators, older gars, 40-pound bass, 60-pound catfish, and great blue herons really take a heavy toll on small fish :).

 

Seriously, I'm not at all afraid of gars, and I have no reason at all to mess with them. It really makes me feel sad when I catch one accidentally, because I have to kill it--no way to get the hook out safely while it's alive, and I can't let it go with the hook in place and let it slowly suffer. But there are plenty of REAL killers around here, from 18-foot alligators to swarms of both malaria and yellow fever mosquitos, to flesh-eating bacteria. Those things scare me a lot

 

PS. Jesus Bullethead, Id say youre going for Nessie with that setup.

 

How else do you propose to catch a 10-15' catfish? You sure aren't going to do that with a fishing pole .

[Test Pilot 0]

Bullethead, ever try noodling???

[Bullethead 12]

Bullethead, ever try noodling???

 

Only as that term pertains to what goes on the back seat of a high school student's car parked on "Lovers' Lane" . And that can be risky enough, as I'm sure you know.

[+MK2 12]

Here is a pick of some monsters at the bottom of this page

 

http://boards.history.com/thread.jspa?thre...ageID=700348990

[Test Pilot 0]

That sturgeon is incredible.