Sexing Channel Catfish...

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Hey Viktor, I'm fine with that, PlanetCatfish is the ultimate resource for Catfish science. One thing I'm not clear on is that someone mentioned that channel cats can be sexed by the appearance or lack thereof of genital papillae as can be found on male pseudopimelodids, claroteidids and bagrids among others. I've caught hundreds of channel cats over time but don't recall noticing external differences at the ventral area? Guess I'll have to go fishin'...
 
Kirk, were you paying attention to the ventral area to figure out the sex?

Blackbullhead stated that. I hope he will elaborate. I was surprised too that such an easy sexing way was not reflected in the Cat-eLog. It's not that the entry was empty but it said "unknown".

EDIT: many thanks Blackbullhead. You beat me by 1 minute to it :)
 
The link you provided is very clear, something I'd never bothered to notice really. Good info! When fishing I've always targeted bigger fish where the difference is obvious based on general shape and morphology. Same is likely true for other ilacturids I suspect. My favorite is flathead catfish and in large specimens the sexual difference can be obvious by virtue of head size and girth comparisons as with other cats but now it seems that I'll be able to tell the difference in smaller fish by closely viewing the ventral area for the number of orifices found and perhaps amaze my fishing buddies with my expertise! Thanks!
 
dazzapolypterusweeksii said:
Would love to see some pics. i think if you took some close up pics of the vent area you would be able to tell not to difficult
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Chicxulub said:
Good info in this thread. I'll admit I've head the same sayings and found them to be generally true. However, you should be aware that they're anecdotal, not empirical, and as such they may not be 100% reliable.

That being said, I don't think anyone would laugh because you like NA native fishes. Ameiurus nebulosus cf. marmoratus is one of the most handsome fishes in existence, and both blues and channels have lots of fans here.

The best catfish that I've ever kept was a blue, Ictalurus furcatus.
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ok, so what exactly am I looking for if I vent them? I mean are the holes closer together/further apart or is it something totally different? I have never vented a fish nor really inquired about how to do so......
 
What you're looking for is one orifice or two, males have one, an anal orifice, females have two, a frontal oviduct to lay eggs and a posterior anal orifice. Just back from a flathead fishing trip I was able to easily tell the difference between sexes as the same clues apply to flathead catfish as well, from small specimens like 4 lb. male fish to bigger female ones over 30 lbs. It's very obvious after examining several specimens and knowing what to look for, even though I can usually tell beforehand by the "big head-small girth" characteristics for males and the "small head compared to large girth" typical of females, just nice to have a more scientific way to confirm things...
 
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Yellowcat said:
What you're looking for is one orifice or two, males have one, an anal orifice, females have two, a frontal oviduct to lay eggs and a posterior anal orifice. Just back from a flathead fishing trip I was able to easily tell the difference between sexes as the same clues apply to flathead catfish as well, from small specimens like 4 lb. male fish to bigger female ones over 30 lbs. It's very obvious after examining several specimens and knowing what to look for, even though I can usually tell beforehand by the "big head-small girth" characteristics for males and the "small head compared to large girth" typical of females, just nice to have a more scientific way to confirm things...
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Any chance you could provide pics? I'd like to do a writeup on NA cats and this would be very useful.
 
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In hindsight I now wish I'd taken photo's of the sexual differences remembering this thread but I didn't. I took the usual photo's of the fish as fishermen do but nothing that would help in this particular case and all fish were released at the time as soon as possible. Next time I go I'll take the time to take some relevant ventral photo's and post the results. I was able to tell the difference in smaller channel cats as well….
 
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