I started keeping track in 1985 of the number of people who've told me the following story.

"I know someone personally who knew some guys who were scuba divers on a mission to repair the dam at (insert name of lake here) and saw monster catfish that were so big they were afraid to dive again".

I'm now up to thirty times I've heard the story. Five of the stories were about Lake McConaughy in Nebraska. The other twenty-five were each at separate lakes.

My question is this: How many of you have heard this story? And how many of you believe it? And do divers really get sent to "repair a dam"? And were one of you PB forum members actually on a diving team that got scared by giant catfish? And why would a person be scared of a giant catfish to begin with? Do they bite?

Just wondering...

I've heard the same story about divers going into repair some underwater culverts in some lake north of Albany, NY. near a GE Plant, and the divers wouldn't dive anymore 'cause the northern pike were 6-7' long.

Catfish stuff; Deal or No Deal

I never have time to repair dams while scuba diving 'cause I'm always too busy cowtipping.

(Sunil...he's been welding again)

That's funny. Can you imagine the following conversation.

"Daryl, get yer dang scuba gear on, and go repair that big crack in the dam."

"But sir, I was just down there and the catfish were as big as volkswagons!"

"I don't care Daryl! That crack in the dam is getting bigger by the hour! Go fix that thing!"

"Attaining an unconfirmed length of 3 m, the Mekong giant catfish grows extremely quickly, reaching a mass of 150 to 200 kg in only six years.[6] The largest catch recorded in Thailand since record-keeping began in 1981 was a female measuring 2.7 m (roughly 9 feet) in length and weighing 293 kg (646 lb). This specimen, caught in 2005, is widely recognized as the largest freshwater fish ever caught."

SOURCE

I'll remember that the next time I'm repairing dams in the Mekong province.

SOURCE

That's probably what caused the crack in the dam!

When I worked offshore, we had divers dive around our platforms to do work and they used to tell us there were jew fish down around the legs of the platform that weighed a 1000 to 1200 lbs. Looking back on it I'll bet they told guys the same story on every platform they worked.

I have a friend who was first a navy diver , then worked offshore , then worked for the gov checking bridge pilings on the Miss River. He also would wrestle 100lb cats up from the oxbows. He said matter of factly he often saw large shadows (car size) swimming around when in the Miss river. I have seen film of very large fish around the offshore rigs. heybud I don't know if they were jew fish but they were telling you the truth about fish that big.

What do you think the car sized shadows were?

Dude had some sack, that's for sure. To swim with creatures like that, basically helpless in the water to the whim of a huge fish....

Black submersibles, the underwater equivalent of those black helicopters with the noise cancellation technology. :rolleyes: They keep flying over at night. It really bugs me how I can't see or hear them.

P.S. Sorry, guys, it's been a long week.

I know how small GSF are nipple biters, so I wonder what a big ol' bridge pilin' habitatin' catfish is gonna do to ya. It might not be pretty.

I understand Theo. He thought they were big catfish. There are written records of the settlers describing how indians caught cats that size in the Miss and they didn't use a 5 wt fly rod.

There were early white settler reports of, what, 300+ lbs catfish in the Mississippi. Find their big brother, and you're talking a small car.

Yes I have heard this story Many Many Many times and I am from a totally different part of the country....

This is exciting to hear about. Very good stuff. Makes me want to take up scuba diving.

Please, please BE PREPARED !

Bruce, I have heard about it on 3 or 4 Texas lakes. As I recall on one story, a VW went off the dam that they needed to recover. The divers were scared off by cats bigger than the VW.

Why did you originally want to become a diver, Daryl?

"Well, half of the dams in the country a cracked, and the other half are absolutely littered with VW's."

Now we know what happened to all those old Beetles. I mean, they never wore out or rusted, right?

The wake from a big sturgeon would toss that little Mekong RIver cat around like a bathtub toy.

bobad,

I got a e-mail sometime back with pictures of a Sturgeon over 11 foot length and over 1,000 pounds. Like to know how old the boy was.....

I'll look and see if I still have a copy in the files if anybody would like to see it.

Dan

"Others have made claims of finding larger sturgeon, but the International Game Fishing Association says the largest sturgeon on record is 468 pounds. That fish has also held the record for largest freshwater fish caught."

SOURCE


"The White Sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus, meaning "sturgeon beyond the mountains"), also known as the Pacific sturgeon, Oregon sturgeon, Columbia sturgeon, Sacramento sturgeon, and California white sturgeon, is a sturgeon (a fish of the family Acipenseridae) which lives along the west coast of North America from the Aleutian Islands to Central California.

It is the largest freshwater fish in North America. A white sturgeon can weigh more than 1500 pounds (680 kg), and grow to 20 feet (6.10 m) in length, and can live 100 years or more."

SOURCE

Either people are being sloppy in their reporting, or that cat was caught on rod and reel! That seems doubtful though, because that species of catfish are vegetarians.

There are old photographs in existance (too old to photochop) that show gigantic sturgeon weighing well over 1000 pounds. Source: my cob webby memory.

Just imagine 1 of those Mekong cats veging out in a weedy pond.

I think I've found the disconnect WRT people discounting Sturgeon as the largest freshwater fish. In the article linked below they make the statement that Sturgeon are not purely freshwater fish.

"Sturgeon spend most of their lives at sea, or in brackish water, and only swim into freshwater rivers to spawn."

SOURCE

There is one place where the Sturgeon don't move into salt water, but that isn't the natural order. They don't return to the ocean like most Sturgeon because man-made dams have blocked their way. Apparently they are surviving and even multiplying, but who can say if they will remain viable in the long run?

"Dams constructed along the Columbia and Snake Rivers has also become a threat to sturgeon. The dams block passage to and from the ocean leaving landlocked populations. The higher water levels have, as a result, destroyed areas that used to have rapid currents, eliminating spawning grounds. At this point in time, the only healthy population of White Sturgeon on the Columbia River and its tributaries is the lower Columbia River population. These fish are still able to move freely between marine, estuarine, and freshwater environments. All other populations have become landlocked because of the dams. These populations have suffered from the inaccessibility of many food sources, inability to migrate, and destruction of their habitat. As a result, none of the populations above Bonneville Dam are considered to be abundant but some do support fisheries. The Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife has worked together with The Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife and the Columbia River Treaty Tribes to impose size restrictions as well as season and quota restrictions on all sturgeon caught in the Columbia River. The objective of size restrictions is to minimize fishing impacts on large sturgeon that comprise the spawning population."

SAUCE

So it looks like the title of largest freshwater fish has to go to the Mekong cat for now.

I grew up near Lake Lavon in Texas (40 miles or so NE of Dallas) and I remember hearing tales of monster catfish being seen by divers along the dam. My memory is fuzzy, but I seem to recall seeing pics of big ole cats that were snagged there. Seems they were bigger than the men that caught them. Heck, I was just a kid though and that was a loooong time ago, so I could've just dreamt that at some point.

The story always involves a diver and a dam. Different lake every time, though.

You'd think that a biologist would capture one on a netting survey, or electrofishing or something. You know, just once!

Now what fun would that be? Then we'd know for sure and there'd be no more speculation. :rolleyes:

Personally I like not knowing. I'm not the conspiracy theory type, but stuff like this makes one think. There's so much out there we don't even know about, and it is fun to speculate.

Well, we now know that a catfish can reach at least 9 feet and 650 lbs, and it's not likely that that one particular catfish was the THE largest.

In my opinion it's not weird to think that huge catfish exist in the US also. When you think about it, how much time do humans spend hanging around the bottom of deep fresh water? Also, it's only natural that when people re-tell the story it happened in their local lake or river.

Anyway, if a diver for the Thailand Dam Authority tells me that he was checking the base of a dam and he saw a giant catfish I guess I wouldn't have any reason to doubt him.

Maybe the only downside to pond fishing?


I can certainly see where the legends come from. Murky water, claustrophobic feeling, adrenalin pumping, then SOMETHING REALLY BIG brushes by you...

I've heard tell of divers out southwest of Lincoln NE doing some bottom work on a pond owned by a DR Frankenbruce. When they came back up their hair was snow white and they were ghost-white pale. Their horrific stories of RES and BG's as big as volkswagons swept through the Nebraska countryside like wildfire. They swore they'd never dive in those ponds again.

There was a guy that was spearfishing off the texas coast that speared a huge jew fish(grouper) and it drug him into a hole and the man drowned. That was a true story not urban legend jew fish can get very very large. I have seen actual pictures of jew fish caught surf fishing that would go 300-400 pounds. I have also heard about catfish the size of volkswagons at the toledobend damn when i was in high school.

Not to worry. Us PMs still have mist demons, wind sprites, man-eating Redears ... the list goes on and on.

Man, it's not just in reservoirs that these monsters scare divers...I've heard many times about the same thing happening on the navigation (lock &) dams here on the mighty Mississippi.

Must be a WHOLE buncha them giants out there. :rolleyes:

I thinks it's the same fish Matt. He just gets around.

I think he drives a VW...

...but he outta be gettin' old enough to just die already, hadn't he?

Well he really shouldn't be driving still, but nobody has the heart to take away his keys.

Reminds me of my grandma, back before she passed...

All of 5'4", maybe 95 lbs...in her great big ol' Tornado...

"Can't hear...can't see. Thank God I can still drive." :p

I don't know about cat's that big, but i have seen large gar, and know they get big enough to scare me from diving in some lakes in Texas. Take a look at this link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alligator_gar