Blue catfish
From Freepedia
| Blue catfish | ||||||||||||||
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| Ictalurus furcatus (Lesueur, 1840) |
The blue catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) is one of the largest species of North American catfish. The current angling world record weighed 121.5 pounds (55.1 kg) and was caught in Lake Texoma in Texas on 16 January 2004. Though it has not yet been officially documented as a world record, a 124 pound blue catfish was caught on May 22, 2005, in the Mississippi River. Blue catfish are distributed primarily in the Mississippi River drainage including the Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, and Arkansas rivers. These large catfish have also been introduced in a number of reservoirs and rivers, notably the Santee-Cooper Reservoir in South Carolina and the James River in Virginia.
Blue catfish are opportunistic predators and will eat any species of fish they can catch, along with crayfish, freshwater mussels, frogs, and other readily available aquatic food sources. Catching their prey becomes all the more easy if it is already wounded or dead, and blue cats are noted for feeding beneath marauding schools of striped bass in open water in reservoirs or feeding on wounded baitfish that have been washed through dam spillways or power generation turbines. Due to their opportunistic nature, blue catfish will usually take advantage of readily accessible food in a variety of situations, which from the angler's perspective makes cutbaits, deadbaits, and even stinkbaits an excellent choice to target these fish. Blue cats will also respond well to livebaits, with live river herring and shad usually a top choice followed by large shiner minnows, sunfish, suckers, and carp. All of the above baits can be used as fresh cutbaits with good success and freshwater drum also work well in this capacity. Generally a fairly large piece of cutbait (4-12 inches long) on a fairly large hook (3/0 to 9/0) is a good choice in rivers or reservoirs where large blue cats (20 pounds and up) are a possibility. Depending on current conditions sinkers ranging from 1/2 to 6 or 8 oz. may be required with 1-2 oz. a good choice for many situations. To catch large blue catfish in rivers the more current the better usually, although fishing along current edges and breaks is often a good option. Blue catfish tend to favor deeper water in larger rivers and reservoirs, but will make feeding and spawning forays into relatively shallow water.
