Blue Catfish

What may be the world’s largest catfish was reeled in by Greg Bernal, from Florissant, and Janet Momphard, of St Charles.

This blue wonder, which was weighed in to be 130 pounds, beat the State record in Misouri by 27 pounds and might just outweigh the world record by 6 pounds.

This is amazing, as blue catfish generally only grow to be between 3 pounds and normally no more than 40 pounds, which suggests that the catfish dragged in had fed on his share of the food supply.

It took the couple around 15 minutes to drag the monstrous catfish toward their tiny fishing boat, kicking and screaming the whole way no doubt. It then took another 30 minutes to land the giant fish, and then only with the aid of two nets could they get the catch into their tiny fishing boat. The fish was caught in the Missouri River, close to the Columbia Bottom conservation area.

In order to catch this amazing catfish, they used a hunk of Asian Carp, which had willingly jumped into their boat, for bait.

There is still a lot of paperwork, and hemming and hawing to be done, before the catch is certified as a world record. However, the Missouri Department of Conservation has commented that there is no doubt at all, that this monstrous catfish broke the world record.

Specimens of the invasive Blue catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) have now grown large enough to reach the top of the food chain in James River, Virginia. A catfish weighing 102 lbs (46 kg) was caught from the river not long ago; the largest caught freshwater fish ever to be reported from Virginian waters.

30 years ago, Blue catfish was deliberately introduced to this U.S. river as a game fish. During recent years, the catfish population has grown explosively while many other fish species have decreased. An eight year old Blue catfish normally weigh a mere 4 lbs (1.8 kg), but as soon as it gets large enough to start catching other fish and devouring fully grown crabs, it begins putting on weight at a rapid pace and can gain as much as 10 lbs (4.5 kg) a year.

Blue Catfish – Ictalurus furcatus. Copyright www.jjphoto.dk

According to Bob Greenlee, a biologist with the state Department of Game and Inland Fisheries, scientists doing sampling used to get around 1,500 catfish in an hour in this river in the 1990s. Today, this number has increased to 6,000. “We have an invasive species that is taking over the ecosystem,” says Rob Latour, a marine biologist with the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William and Mary.