Trophy channel catfish over the size of 10lbs are considered rare
and quite a catch. Amazingly some the most impressive monsters have
come from the red river of the north in the Manitoba Canada basin. If
your thinking logically you would think the largest giants of the
channel catfish species would come from the southern region of the
channel cat's habitat, but that is not so. Habitat location doesn't
seem to make a difference when we talk about these trophy catfish
specimens. It absolutely amazing that a 58lb channel catfish holds the
world record. The monster of a channel catfish was caught in 1964 by
W.B. Whaley. His catch was well documented and never has been
discredited. Now this fish did come from a reservoir called Lake Marion
in South Carolina, but no large monsters even close to this size have
been caught since.
If you are wondering why this fish grew so
big we can speculate that three factors drove it's growth, but this
only pure speculation. During the late 1950's and into the 1960's there
was serious flooding of river delta system in this area. This generated
a very unusual growth and population of forage fish such as shad and
skip jack herring that migrated into Lake Marion. This fish had an over
abundance of food to eat for many years.. Also there was no competition
from flat head catfish or blue catfish at that time. Since then both
have been introduced to the area, and no monster channel catfish of
even close to this size have been caught since. That is factor number
two, competition for the food source from other game fish.
Normally
channel catfish have a internal growth mechanism built into their
metabolism that determines how large they will grow. Prime natural
habitat for channel catfish would be in small to medium rivers that
have a overabundance of bait fish and where they had very little
competition from other predators such as blue catfish and flathead
catfish, and other large game fish. Normally in theory ,if these
habitat conditions are present no mater where the location is within
the channel catfish's habitat range there's a good chance that very
large channel catfish will be caught.
For example I live by a
very large shallow lake in ohio that has had an over abundance of
gizzard shad for years. The lake is exceptional for channel catfish and
catches over 4lbs are a very common occurrence. Although they are
uncommon there are catches of trophy size channel catfish over 10lbs
every year. I personally have caught 5 10lb plus catfish from this
lake. My biggest be 12lbs + caught just this year in august. This lake
is 10 miles long and 2 miles wide and there is an amazing amount of
cover. It is fed by two creeks. There are no blue catfish in this lake
and a very small population of flathead catfish. So there is little
competition for the shad. They did however introduce walleye into the
lake about 8 years ago so the verdict is out on what it will do to the
growth of very large channel catfish. But I know in my gut there is a
channel cat out there in the 20 to 30lb range.
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