According to Webster: Any of a large group of scaleless fishes (Family Ictaluridae) with long barbells, somewhat like a cat’s whiskers, about the mouth and usually with sharp spines before the dorsal and pectoral fins.
Well, that’s a start. There’s Black, Brown, Yellow, Snail, Flat and Spotted Bullheads, Channel, Flathead and Blue. Add on a host of very small species called Madtoms and that’s a mess of catfish. If you want to go global, it is believed that there are around 3,000 species of catfish, ranging in size from fingerling to the Asian Mekong Catfish, which is the largest freshwater fish in the world, weighing in at over 600 pounds. The Amazon is swimming in catfish species. Sometimes, Webster was given to understatement.
Next to the snake, few of God’s creatures evoke such passion as the catfish, even to the point of sin. There is certainly a case for gluttony, when it involves the Friday night all you can eat, fried kind of catfish. Have a better example of sloth than a snoozer, in the shade, on a summer’s day, “watching” a milk jug trot line? I didn’t think so. A devoted bass fisherman who pulls a bewhiskered Bullhead from the pond he has managed for trophy bass is possibly the best example of wrath that one could ever wish to never witness. Surely pride goeth before and cometh after a surfacing noodler, gasping for breath, with a slippery 20 pounder in his grasp. For this writing, we’ll leave out the sins of greed, envy and lust.
It’s said that catfish are just bottom feeding trash fish, but there are more recipes for catfish than Forrest’s friend, Bubba, had for shrimp. There’s fried, stewed, blackened, broiled, curried, baked, encrusted, jerked, but mostly fried. They’re low in calories and fat, high in protein and taste pretty darn good.
Whatever the catfish stirs inside you, it is also an economic engine. Mississippi is a particular beneficiary of this boon. Without getting too deep in the muddy waters of economics, or SEC rivalry, the Mississippi catfish industry continually employs over 10,000 workers, with incomes over $200 million and a total economic impact pushing into the billions, making it the No. 7 agricultural product of the state. That’s just Mississippi; don’t forget to add Arkansas, Louisiana, Alabama, Georgia, North and South Carolina. A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon it adds up to some serious money.
Yes, people go for catfish. Advocates will pay to stock their ponds with them. Some will go for them with hooks and lines baited with unimaginably putrescent baits, some with bare hands, some with knives and forks, and some with SBA loans. The catfish also has many detractors that may even go after him with poison!
Whatever your desire, opinion, or interest level of catfish, with Aquascape Environmental, you “know a guy” that can hook you up with or unhook you from catfish, provide you with catfish information, or if you’re a particularly good friend, fry up a mess for you. All you have to do is go catfishing!
Information on the Asian Mekong Catfish can be found at: http://wwf.panda.org/our_work/wildlife/profiles/fish_marine/giant_catfish/
