Big Catfish

ScubyDoo · Mar 20, 2002

There have been several tales in my local area about sightings of extremely large catfish. My thoughts are that these are very imaginative tall tales but wanted to share and ask if similar type stories circulate in your neck of the woods.

Lake Norfork here in Arkansas and also Greers Ferry Lake. Both lakes are damned rivers operated by the Corps of Engineers. Both are in the Ozarks and are pretty deep clear lakes due to the deep valleys and rocky nature of the land. The depths above the dam are over 500ffw. Story is that Corps divers have gone down to perform equipment checks/maintenance and after seeing the size of the catfish at depth, vowed to never ever dive back down there again. Divers accounts estimate these catfish to be over 500lbs and large enough to swallow a man whole.

I'll be doing my deep dive soon for my AOW cert, although at Lake Quachita and certainly not as deep as these fish were supposedly spotted. I sure hope I dont run into anything like that!!

devilfish · Mar 20, 2002

Scubydoo,
Do your AOW and don't let immaginary shaddows scare you. Leake Mead in NV has some pretty large Channel Cats. 500 lb for a fish is not that unussual. Think of a dolphin, although not a fish it can easily exceed that weight. Lake Mead is a popular dive site, thousends of divers train and dive there. There are no reports of divers ever being swallowed by a cat fish. Go diving and enjoy.

TexasMike · Mar 20, 2002

Perhaps we need to do some Hillbilly Spearfishing!

--TM (dang, you would mention catfish....now I'm hungry)

scubanole · Mar 20, 2002

I have heard those same tales about catfish in the Appalachicola River at the dam that forms Lake Seminole in SW GA.

sea nmf · Mar 20, 2002

Around here it's tales of six gill sharks. They do exist but sitings are rare.

MikeFerrara · Mar 20, 2002

There are tales of huge scary cats everywhere there is a dam. I dive Lake Norfork alot but I am not afraid of catfish (I eat them). I see bigger cats in midwest quarries than I have down there. There are some big cats if you see one enjoy.
Mike

Hawk · Mar 20, 2002

Those tales are everywhere as was stated above. On the Columbia by Bonneville dam there are reported (you know, "they" said it so it must be true) catfish of about the same size. A large channel cat in our state is about a couple feet long, so they must have steroids as a byproduct of puting in a piece of cement!

Later, Hawk.

JustAddWater · Mar 20, 2002

Some of the deeper lakes in central California are reputed to hold some large catfish. Sherriff divers are rumored to have seen 4 to 5 foot "shadows" pass in front of them; the assumption being that they were catfish. I have seen 20-25 pounder come out one of the lakes, and have caught close to a 20 pounder. (It was cleaned before I saw a scale) 500 pounds- now that's a BIG lake fish!

trymixdiver · Mar 20, 2002

Devil

I dove mead a few times and to be honest saw very little in the way of fish. I dont there are some big ones in there but we never saw anything bigger than 3 to 5 lbs. Oh dives were deep but not below 200'. The same with lake mohave, lots of nothing to see. We heard rumors of the cats at both places but never saw much in the way of fish. Even the fishing was just ok.

Andy

GeekDiver · Mar 20, 2002

Here in Texas every thing is big but the largest catfish I have ever caught was 78 lbs and approx 5 ' ave haul we would bring in was in 50-60 lbs range 4'+. I have seen pics of catfish in the 90-100 lbs range and over 5'. I won't mention the fishing tech we used due to 5 th amend rights but large cat's are out there for the takin if you know how and have the right equipment. I have never heard of or seen a pic's of a catfish over 150' or much longer than 5' 6" and would not believe unless I saw one at least in a pic hangin from a tree being skined

Big Catfish

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