Tag: Lb Test Line

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Freshwater Fishing – Texas Catfish or Chameleon?

There’s so much information to be found on the Internet!

I was reading about a gentleman who caught a rather large catfish in Texas last month. How large – the catfish weighed 45 pounds, measured 41 inches long, had 28 inches in girth and was 9½ inches across its head. Oh! … And it was caught on 6 lb test line!

Now I know that certainly isn’t a world record fish, but you’ve got to give props to the guy for landing such a large fish on such light gear! Unfortunately there was no picture of the fish in the article I was reading. Perhaps that’s because he was too embarrassed to show the pink spinning reel he was using! (He claimed it was his wife’s!) lol

But I digress … The reel (pun intended) reason for the topic of this post is the other catfish caught down in Texas. The one that had the coloring which was similar to a killer whale! The size of the fish was not given, but the coloring was. The catfish was “a blue catfish that was colored in a vivid black and white pattern, much like a killer whale.” Very unique coloring for sure!

Turns out that this wasn’t the first catfish caught in that lake that had this coloring. There were 3 – 4 other fish caught in the last 4 decades that exhibited this coloring pattern. Another fellow, who is the curator of aquaria for the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center, said that he had a “black and white blue catfish on display in that facility that eventually reverted to a normal bluish gray color. The same thing happened to a killer whale-colored blue cat in Cabela’s Fort Worth store, where curator Tim Huebner said it took about 18 months for the fish to morph into a traditional color.”

Biology professor Tim Bonner at Texas State stated that the condition is called partial albinism and could result from an injury or stress caused by environmental conditions. Who said that the chameleon is the only animal to change its color?

So I was wondering what it was that was in that lake in Texas that was causing such stressed out catfish? Perhaps the fish there can read and all the bad news going around is stressing out those poor cats! Hah – guess we’ll never know!

If you’d like to read the article, you can find it here:

Crazy Catfish

Have a good day and I’ll catch you later!

Editor’s Note: Biology professor Tim Bonner at Texas State was kind enough to send a picture of the uniquely colored catfish for everyone to view. He said the picture was sent to him from Texas Parks and Wildlife fish biologist – Bruce Hysmith (the actual photographer is unknown). So here’s the picture and many thanks to Professor Bonner!

Texas Killer Whale Catfish
Killer Whale Catfish

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Freshwater Fishing For Carp

Freshwater Fishing For Carp

I live close to the Mantua Creek in southern NJ and each year in early summer the carp would migrate up the creek from the Delaware river to spawn.

As a child and teenager, I lived right next to the creek. In fact, the creek ran through our property. I remember going out at night and hearing the carp splashing about having fun in their spawning rituals. This would last for a few weeks and then they’d go back down the creek and back to the river. A local reporter lived a few blocks away from us. His name was Ralph Knissel and he wrote a fishing column for the Gloucester County Times. Ralph had reported carp being caught a few hundred yards downstream from where we fished that went over thirty pounds!

We used to bottom fish as teenagers and would catch eels, catfish and occasionally a carp.

One particular instance stands out in my carp fishing times. We were using some homemade cornbread (and other sweet smelling additives) doughballs. I was using a medium action rod with 25 lb test on it. (I knew the carp were big!) As my friends and I were talking, my bait was taken and after waiting a few seconds, I set the hook.
The fish was big and my rod bent. After fighting to get him up to the surface and onto the creek bank, the fish broke my line and fell back into the creek. Talk about disappointed! We never saw the whole fish before the line broke, but boy was it large! Of course the stories and arguments began between the 4 of us fishing about just how large the fish was. Bottom line … the fish broke my 25 lb test line!

So why am I posting about large carp? Funny you should ask! 🙂 I was just reading an article from the UK about how they lost a local favorite carp. They even have names for their carp! You can check out the article here:

Benson the giant carp.

Hope you enjoy it!

I’ll catch you later.