How to Catch Catfish

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This one's not as big as the 200-pound monster Huckleberry Finn claimed to have snagged, but it’s a hefty load of fish fry. 
This one's not as big as the 200-pound monster Huckleberry Finn claimed to have snagged, but it’s a hefty load of fish fry. 
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Live minnows are just one of many productive catfish baits.
Live minnows are just one of many productive catfish baits.
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Today, both catfishing and catfish dining are enjoying a surge in popularity, while catfish farming—reflecting America's expanding appetites—is one of the fastest-growing agricultural industries in the nation.
Today, both catfishing and catfish dining are enjoying a surge in popularity, while catfish farming—reflecting America's expanding appetites—is one of the fastest-growing agricultural industries in the nation.
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CHANNEL CATFISH 
CHANNEL CATFISH 
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FLATHEAD CATFISH 
FLATHEAD CATFISH 
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BLUE CATFISH 
BLUE CATFISH 
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BROWN BULLHEAD 
BROWN BULLHEAD 
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WHITE CATFISH 
WHITE CATFISH 

This informative guide on how to catch catfish provides fishing tips and tricks. Live minnows are just one of many productive catfish baits. (See the catfish photos and illustrations in the image gallery.)

How to Catch Catfish

“Well, the days went along, and the river went down between its banks again, and about the first thing we done was bait one of the big hooks with a skinned rabbit and set it and catch a catfish that was as big as a man, being six foot two inches long, and weighed over two hundred pounds. We couldn’t handle him, of course; he would ‘a’ flung us into Illinois. We just set there and watched him rip and tear around till he drownded.”

That’s Mark Twain, of course, and while it might seem that he’s wildly exaggerating the size of Huck and Jim’s big catfish for literary effect, the old master was in fact merely pushing the limits of reality. For Twain’s Mississippi was, and remains, an exceptionally fertile environment for the growth of giants among the two largest catfish species native to North America, the blue and the flathead.

The International Game Fish Association’s rod-and-reel record for the blue is 97 pounds; for the flathead, 98. But larger, much larger cats have been taken by non-IGFA-sanctioned methods such as trotlines, bank poles and hand lines.

  • Published on May 1, 1988
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