The hump back blue is the most familiar catfish, to fish for and develops to above 120 lbs.. Today's competition for the American recordbook of one hundred tewnty four pounds is from the Alton Illinois Sunday May 22, 2005. There are 572,000,000 million lbs. of catfish farmed in commercial ponds. The 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 of dinosaurs.

World's largest catfish, was weighed at 646 lbs., caught in the Mekong River, Thailand, May 1,2005, and is known as the Mekong Giant 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 wedged head, of the appaluchion and the yellow color typifies the second biggest freshwater catfish. The United States recordbook is 98.50, pounds, Near Tyler, TX, in Dec. 14, 1998. Flathead catfish may live 19 years and more. Virtually all species of catfish from uncontaminated water is very good eating.

Catfish Bait in the dough balls, subsidize dead minnows for the favored bait for catfish.