The blue catfish is the most familiar catfish, to fish for and grows to over one hundred twenty lbs.. Today's competition for the American record of 124 lbs. is from the Alton Illinois Sunday May 22, 2005. There are 572,000,000 million lbs. of catfish grown for profit. Recent , 6 28 2005, discovery of the Lacantunia enigmatica catfish in Chiapas, Mexico is the only known specimen of catfish of prehistoric origins dating to the time before the ice age.

World's largest catfish, was weighed at 646 lbs., caught in the Area of Ton Le Sap in Cambodia., May 1,2005, and is also known as the Pangasianodon gigas Catfish, and is being studied as a critically endangered species.

The spotted cat grow to 45 pounds averaging 14 years but are known to live to 20 years.

The wedged head, of the appaluchion and the yellow skin represents the 2nd heaviest inland water catfish. The U.S. record is ninety eight and a half, pounds, Lake Palestine, Texas, in December 1998. These fish may survive nineteen years and more. Most varieties of catfish from fresh water is very good table fare.

Catfish Bait in the dough balls, subsidize dead minnows for the preferred attractant for catfish.