That flathead is sexy. I love the speckling.
I think its amazing how convergent they are with other, similar cats that have similar patterns of behavior such as the Jau.
I regret the fact that American catfishes have been so dramatically overfished. I would love to see a modern specimen that achieved the size of the fish on record from largely reliable shipping manifests from the 1800s; 350 pound bluecats and 10 foot gator gars and whatnot. I firmly believe that big fish from the Mississippi could potentially rival fish from anywhere else on the Earth if their fisheries pressure wasn't so absurdly high. Oh well, I guess we'll never know though.
It's not just fishing pressure though. Man made dams have diverted, and channelized the Mississippi basin. This has also eliminated the natural flood plains that these large fish depend on to attain such immense sizes. Add in fishing pressure and it's like a one-two punch. There are commercial fishing records of flats over the 150 lbs mark of recent note, along with 150 lbs blues as well. I have not seen any real reports on flatheads fro the 1800s to see what their real potential could be. Some of those giant's bloodlines have died out also which means in effect we have reduced the max size of these fish. Also the amazon basin is undergoing the same down sizing as well. If you look at the size of fish such as the piraiba now vs. 100 years ago. They are less than half the size recorded then. It is not certain that all the old records are accurate though.
I for one believe that there use to be 300 lbs blues and flatheads along with 1000 lbs piraiba in SA and also 400 lbs jau.
