The blue catfish is the most popular catfish, to fish for and grows to over one hundered pounds. Today's contender for the U.S. recordbook of 124 lbs. is from the Alton Illinois Sunday May 22, 2005. There are 572,000,000 million lbs. of catfish farmed commercially. The recent June 28, 2005 discovery of the Lacantunia enigmatica catfish in Mexico is the only example of catfish of prehistoric origins dating to the time before the ice age.

World's heaviest catfish, weighed 646 lbs., caught in the Chiang Khong Region,Thailand, May 2005, and is also known as the Mekong Giant Catfish, and is being studied as an endangered species.

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

The shoveled head, of the opelousas and the yellow color denotes the second heaviest freshwater catfish. The American record is 98.50, pounds, Lake Palestine, Texas, in nineteen hundred ninety eight. Flathead catfish could live 19 years and more. Virtually all species of catfish from uncontaminated water is very good table fare.

Catfish Bait in the traditional stink bait, subsidize dead minnows for the favored attractant for catfish.