7/5/2005: Largest fresh water fish ever caught
 

http://cellar.org/2005/largestfish.jpg

No more ones that got away stories because this one didn't get away. The offricial cap:

A 646.2-pound (293 kg) Mekong giant catfish, netted in Thailand, may be the largest freshwater fish ever found. The fish was documented as part of a World Wildlife Fund-National Geographic project to identify and study and conserve freshwater fish around the world that exceed 6 feet in length and 200 pounds in weight.

I guess they didn't conserve this one though?

Anyway, good eatin.

Remember that catfish that got a ball stuck in his mouth and he couldn't dive so the nice man got it out for him?

This isn't that catfish.

I read that the fishermen who caught it were talked into letting it go by the WWF guys, and then it drowned. :greenface

I just watched Jaws over the weekend ...

"We're going to need a bigger beer keg."

Things I can't help but wonder:
if they ate it, how did it taste?
how did they catch it?
what was in his stomach?

One thing I do know:
This is ONE HELLUVA FISH!

For something that big, it would have to also be older than the hills. Just think of how many toxins/heavy metals it would have had time to concentrate. I wouldn't eat it. I wonder if anyone over there is into stuffing and mounting fish? Surely it would be worth way more to them as a tourist attraction or to sell to a collector.

*pfffftt!* you call that a fish? i grew up on the mississippi river and this one time i was fishing and...

I took a closer look at this pic and y'all might be interested in what I found. You make your own decision.

How in the world did it grow so big???

That's truly humongous...

This one was caught in MS. river a few weeks ago.
http://www.timpruitt.net/

I had a friend in the taxidermy business who said most fish mounts are actually reproductions these days. Particularly catfish, whose skin does not lend itself to being stretched over a form.

This fish is now living at the giant Cabela's, just a couple of miles west of my office. I intend to go ogle it soon.

That was the plan, anyway. According to the link, the fish died in transport.

Tim Pruitt! i went to high school with him. seriously.

I'm not a big fan of the catfish... so i can't imagine how gross it would taste at that size when it is gross at normal size.

They eat all kinds of strange stuff in Thailand. I was there recently and in the fridge/esky there were frogs on a skewer. Not the kind of frogs they eat in Europe, just ordinary run of the mill frogs. Needless to say I didn't eat them. Catfish and other bizarre fish were also on the menu. :mg:

:Flush: poor Tim......he'll never get close to the new record.
there goes the neighborhood.......

This one looks bigger then the one in Tailand but maybe it's just the angle

It may be strange to you...

Catfish tastes really nasty. I don't recommend it...

Especially 100 year old cat fish. Cripes! It depends on whether you are eating farm raised cat fish or something you drug off the bottom of Lake Pleasant. Farm raised isn't too bad, it's the ones you catch yourself that will taste like the bottom of the lake bed. :greenface

I don't undestand why catfish taste so yucky, but their seafaring counterparts w/ shells taste so yummy? they're all bottom feeding scumsuckers.....(insert lawyer jokes here)

I don't exactly eat a lot of catfish, but I've enjoyed every one I've eaten. In fact, I'd say they were all yummy. The biggest was probably only a pound though.

Because of all the mud the catfish ingest along with the food. Like carp, if you put them in clean water for a while they taste better. :)

thanks. (I'm kinda partial to Sierra fresh caught trout - scrambled w/ eggs is great for camping breakfast.)

That looks like a carp and way before they were worried about saving anything except leftovers. :biggrin:

It depends on what the catfish is eating. They tend to dine on certain types of algea that other "bottom-feeders" don't eat. apparently, catfish also process the algea compounds differently. This flavor can be removed from the fish if you wait for the fish to purge the compound out of their system, so apparently it's not a permanent affliction.

Anybody else think the guy on the left in the old picture looks like Robin Williams?

On catfish - I guess it depends on where you catch them. I've had a number of catfish from Lake of the Ozarks and they all tasted just fine. That was 35 years ago, so I can't vouch for what they taste like these days.

On another topic - I can't believe I'm old enough to say shit like "That was 35 years ago". How depressing. :(

Actually it is a Jew Fish which is a type of Grouper, the world record was something like 680 lbs caught back in the 60's

i've caught plenty. to me, channel cat's are the best. i've had a blue, hard head, and gaftop-sail before, yeah, channel cat is the best tasting.

When my kids were little and in Cub Scouts we used to go as a group to one of these cat fish ponds where you pay by the pound for what you catch. One place had a big diesel engine running some kind of airtion pump. I remember the catfish tasted a little like diesel fuel so we pitched them out! :dead:

I have a pond in the backyard. Stocked w/ channel cats. Only 2 acres at most. If you feed the regularly they taste much better. If you don't they eat mud, shit, etc, of course. (they WILL survive). The smaller they are, the better they taste. Bigger than 3-4 lbs......chunk'em.
The pond is creek fed as opposed to spring fed. In a dry, hot summer, even the small ones taste a little "muddy".
My Dad's pond, which IS spring fed, and therefore stays cooler & cleaner, seems to yield better fish. I have eaten some pretty big ones (which were cut into fillets) & they were rather tasty.
I'm thinking its a combo of the food AND the water.
Lots of folks think the taste comes from the bones, and insist on fillets.
xoB: Don't tell me you eat carp..............

BTW, in my area the best bait for catfish is small sunfish (in the river) and raw chicken liver in ponds. I'm quite sure they are omnivorous........

Not if I have a choice but I worked for a Jew whose mother used to put them in a tub with fresh water and corn meal for a couple days. Twern't that bad.
Some people even eat Shad instead of the board. :lol:

Oh.....catfish...omnivores...you bet. I've had them hit a Hawaian Wiggler.

Flying Carp. From Sunday paper. http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pb...507030341/1127

What does 100 year old catfish taste like?

Depends.

haha

What do trout use for feminine protection?

Brook shields.

OK bye

Probably one of the strangest fish dishes is Lutefisk from Norway where in the old days it was usually cod that was dried and treated with lye as a preservative. It was typically served smothered in bacon fat or mustard for Christmas dinner; :eek:

I got a lead on that picture that chrisinhouston posted on the last page. it appears to be a Goliath Grouper (Jewfish) here's a pic and the narrative on these guys fishing trip......

I have had lutefisk. You can't live in Ballard and not have lutefisk (you'd probably be driven out). It is cod cured in lye. The mystery of why you don't die from poisoning is intact. However, it is a dish that you should try.

I have not had it with bacon grease, but with a little butter on top. I would say that it's delicious, but that would be the butter talking, because the fish itself was so mild as to be practially tasteless. The texture was interesting--very soft and without much grain. Maybe like firm tofu. It was pretty to look at, blindingly white, and somewhat translucent, like a clear piece of squid. Check it out sometime.

How's about I just take your word for it?

Nothing like a good soaking in lye to get those stains out! :lol:

BigV I think you are missing a career as a poet. When I read the above I noticed that if you start at one point you get a limerick. Start at another and you get Seuss.

The limerick

You can't live in Ballard and not have lutefisk
(you'd probably be driven out)
It is cod cured in lye
The mystery of why
you don't die from poisoning is intact.

Seuss

It is cod cured in lye.
The mystery of why
you don't die from poisoning is intact.
However, it's a dish that you should try.

(one minor change for scansion)

If you can do that subconsciously, think what you could do when you were trying.

Lutefisk? Oh yeah...Betty White gave me some the night we... :blush: ...ah..nevermind.
Back to the Catfish...T'was a male...they milked it's milt before it died. You can see morehere

Thank you, dar! I do try to take care with my posts, including this one, but poetry? You flatter me.

Thank you.

*scurries off to the dictionary in search of the meaning of scansion...*

Shoulda googled it...

http://homepage3.nifty.com/Daiou3/Argig_u3.jpg

Doesn't look like 16 feet to me. :eyebrow: