The forktail cat is the most familiar catfish, to fish for and grows to above 120 lbs.. Today's competition for the U.S. recordbook of 124 lbs. is from the Alton Ill. Sunday May 22, 2005. There are 572,000,000 million lbs. of catfish grown commercially. The recent June 28, 2005 discovery of the Lacantunia enigmatica catfish in Chiapas, Mexico is the only known specie of catfish of the ancient Tertiary age dating to the time of dinosaurs.

World's biggest catfish, was weighed at six hundred fourty six lbs., caught in the Chiang Khong Region,Thailand, May 1,2005, and is named as the Pangasianodon gigas Catfish, and is being studied as a critically endangered species.

The river catfish grow to 45 pounds averaging 14 years but are known to live to 20 years.

The flattened head, of the shovelhead cat and the yellow color represents the 2nd heaviest freshwater catfish. The United States record is ninety eight and a half, pounds, Near Tyler, TX, in December 1998. These catfish might live 19 years and more. Most species of catfish from running water is very good table fare.

Catfish Bait in the traditional stink bait, subsidize dead minnows for the preferred lure for catfish.