WASHINGTON, Mo. – A man recently hauled in the catch of a lifetime from the Missouri River, a “monster” 86-pound blue catfish near Washington, Missouri.
Wally Klein made his impressive catch using gizzard shad as bait on a road-and-reel setup. His feat required patience, strength and skill.
Wally told the Missouri Department of Conservation it’s the biggest fish he has ever caught. more
Nice fish!
Still a puppy compared to what’s out there…
Get out the frying pan!
Caught many catfish. The ones over 10 lbs were tough as a baseball glove.
Been “finned” a few times in my youth by 1/2 to 1-1/2 pounders. Very painful.
Sounds like this one would poke all the way through your leg or arm. Just kill me now if that happens
Back in `98, the local lake we sailed on was being dredged of the silt build-up and the dredging machinery killed some fish along the way.
A dead 50 lb catfish was floating by the docks one day and we decided to hoist it up on an ancient unused hoist by the front gate for all to see.
A self-appointed, Saturday-bike-riding-bitcher-about-all-things-not-him pulled up as we tied it off and tried to bitch us out for killing him just to waste it by displaying it like that.
“The dredge killed it, and we thought it would be a waste to not let everyone see this magnificent beast no one previously knew was in the lake. How about you go f**k yourself and mind your own business?”
He silently slinked off on his precious 10 speed bike like the helmet-wearing, shaved-legged-dandy he was.
I discovered monster catfish.
Catfish whiskers are nasty when they strike you. In the spring of 1976, the state of Wash. poisoned Silver Lake nearby to Medical Lake with rotenone to rehab the lake. They allowed fishermen to take as many fish as possible when they came to the surface of the lake after all the oxygen had been depleted. A whole bunch of guys from my church took as many fish as we could get and had one heck of a fish fry at a friend’s house out in the Four Lakes area. All the fish that we didn’t eat we gave to our pastor for fertilizer for his garden. One of the catfish that we caught was still alive the next day and gave one of my roommates a very nasty sting when it flicked its whiskers at him. It was a great day.
It was a fin that stung him, Geoff. There are straight pointy spike bones in them. That’s what gets you. The whiskers are nothing at all. Soft and lithe. They hold their fins out 90 degrees from the body when struggling, like they want to fly.
I’ve had quite a few get me when wriggling on the stringer on the walk home. Wiggle wiggle and that spike punctures the calf pretty easy.
refuse/resist THURSDAY, 24 JULY 2025, 23:16 AT 11:16 PM
Caught many catfish. The ones over 10 lbs were tough as a baseball glove.
One word… SMOKEHOUSE
I”ll send Claudia picture, but doubt she’ll find a way to use it.
The stories to back it up wouldn’t be believed here anyway.
Dadof4, we didn’t know that catfish would still be alive a day later while laying out on the grass overnight. It takes lot to kill a catfish, more than we knew at the time.
I’ll find a way to use it, Anymouse!!
My brother would have loved to catch a catfish like that. He was an avid fisherman and catfish was his preferred catch, although he got many bass, salmon, and other fish.
He even caught a sturgeon once that was about 6 feet long (he pulled it up beside the dock and measured it from where it was against the dock). Definitely not a large sturgeon, but the largest he ever got. Unfortunately, it was one day before sturgeon season and with all the other fishermen yelling and cheering, the DNR officer nearby came over and watched what he was going to do. He had to cut it loose.
But now, I’m sure he is catching the biggest sturgeons ever in Heaven! And if that DNR officer is in Heaven, too, he’s there cheering!
You want to consider sanity look up “noodling for catfish.”
Tried it once and determined it wasn’t the way I wanted to fish going forward. Did it incorrectly and lost a bit of skin on the fingers. You’re not supposed to pull out when they clamp down, but push deeper and grab, then pull it out. The fish you gutter minded…
Claudia,
Two pics sent.
One of mine (I’m on the left) and one showing one at 125#
Anymouse,
Got ’em! 😉
Catfish is a bottom feeder and eats garbage. Used to be good a long time ago before mercury pollution was a problem. All the dark meat is where the toxins settle into. I quit eating catfish years ago and it used to be my favorite.
geoff the aardvark Friday, 25 July 2025, 9:59 at 9:59 am
LOL! Yes. They are a different creature for sure.
My dad told me stories about his dad when he was a kid in Oklahoma in the early 1900’s noodling for catfish. I didn’t believe him at first that there is such a thing as noodling and it really does exist. The bigger problem wasn’t the catfish but alligator snapping turtles which were also in places where catfish were found as well. I’d take a catfish over an alligator snapping turtle any day, those things are dangerous. And I’ll take a pass on noodling for catfish just because.
One day while taking our female golden retriever Indie for a walk up at Manito Pond on Spokane’s S. hill my daughter and I noticed a couple of kestrels (small hawks) fighting over a small catfish that one had caught in the pond and knocking it out of the grasp of that kestrel onto the grass right in front of us. I picked up the bloody catfish and tossed it back into the pond. That’s something that we’ll probably never see happen again.
geoff the aardvark FRIDAY, 25 JULY 2025, 12:33 AT 12:33 PM
There’s also the snake thing, as in Moccasins.
Usually not a problem as the snakes and turtles need to breath. IF the hole you’re working is completely submerged with no air pockets you should be okay.
“I’d take a catfish over an alligator snapping turtle any day, those things are dangerous. And I’ll take a pass on noodling for catfish just because.”
Agreed on both points. Saw a smallish alligator snapping turtle when I was about 9-10 years old in a creek by White Rock Lake, near our Apt. What amazed me was that I saw it swim and then stop in very clear, shallow (less than 1 ft deep), running water. I COULD NOT SEE IT ANY MORE NO MATTER HOW MUCH I STARED INTO THE CREEK!! That scared me more than any snake or bully in my life. I walked that creek bare foot until that day. No More! Even shoes wouldn’t help with that guy. Leeches were the worst from that creek until that afternoon.
Anymouse Friday, 25 July 2025, 13:59 at 1:59 pm
Water Moccasins won’t be hidden under water. They’ll be visible on top. You’ll already know not to be in the water. Probably… LOL
Haven’t seen a cottonmouth in east Dallas in over 50 years. Maybe development got to them. They were pretty regular here in the 60s.
https://www.callnorthwest.com/2023/04/do-water-moccasins-swim-on-top-of-water/