The one that didn't get away (Third-largest catfish ever caught landed in Spain)

The Sun (U.K.) / Various ^ | November 12, 2009 | RICHARD MORIARTY

[LucyJo]

He looks kinda like Mike Huckabee - Sean, that is. *chuckle*

[Jewbacca]

I dunno. Looks to me to lack scales (some catfish apparently have scales). So my instinct is to go to Leviticus 11 or so

(Anything in the seas or in the streams that has no fins and scales . . they are an abomination for you . . you shall not eat of their flesh and you shall abominate their carcasses.)

(That is a paraprhase!)

[ArrogantBustard]

I've never handled a catfish with scales ... just sandpapery, slimy skin and nasty barbs on their fins. No scales, so I guess they're abhominable to you ... I just bread and fry them.

After cleaning them up, that is. It's a bit of work ... guts, heads, skins, bones ... the cats get that.

[Verbosus]

< fishLies >
You can catch a dozen catfish bigger than that before breakfast just about anywhere in Texas.
Done it myself more than once, I tell ya’.
< /fishLies >

[fso301]

It doesn’t look edible.

Indeed, it look prehistorically disgusting.

That isn't a bad general rule to follow. If a creature looks unappealing, avoid eating it.

[AngelesCrestHighway]

fishermen lie?......

[AngelesCrestHighway]

Catfish eat anything on the bottom.....

[Jewbacca]

“I guess they’re abhominable to you”

Aside from looking at this thing and going “that’s a nasty trash-eating bottom feeder that’s probably sucked up heavy metals for 150 years,” you’re correct — the Mt. Sinai covenent is very limited to whom it applies.

[wtc911]

fishermen lie?......

______________________________________

Sheep lie. Fisherman embellish.

[Jewbacca]

“Catfish eat anything on the bottom.....”

http://www.inquisitr.com/4944/angler-catches-corpse-eating-mutant-fish/

[Hot Tabasco]

I hope to God that’s a catfish and not a guy’s poor taste in women.......

[wbill]

In Massachusetts, they could probably get married. ....OK that gets the "Comment of the Day" award, IMHO.

[ArrogantBustard]

sucked up heavy metals for 150 years

Those big river cats live practically forever ... for all I know, some of them are survivors of THE FLOOD. Once they're big enough that the herons can't get them, their only predator is homo sapiens. I'm reluctant to eat big fish out of the Shenandoah, Potomac, and James for the reason you cite: too much metal and PCB contamination. The smaller fish, especially from the uppermost parts of the watershed, are a different matter. Just have to make sure you're fishing above the old industrial areas.

[wbill]

it could attack people...

My uncle used to scuba dive at Smith Mountain Lake in VA....It's a pretty large (20,000 acres) man-made lake. He said that, while diving one afternoon, he ran into a catfish that very easily could have swallowed him.

I wouldn't put it past Unc to embellish a tale or two, however, he stopped diving in the lake that day. You can make the call on whether or not to believe him.

[ArrogantBustard]

Some days, you get the fish .... some days, the fish gets you.

[Scythian]

Most of the mercury in fish comes from coal burning, it’s everywhere, regardless of industrial plants. There was just a series of articles out about how utterly contaminated the fresh waterways of America are after 100’s of years of coal burning ...

[ArrogantBustard]

Link?

Makes sense, though.

[Scythian]

When they cut this catfish open they found a rocking chair, a west virginia license plate, a cordless phone handset, 3 yo-yo's, and 32 of the missing FBI files that Hillary never returned ...

[ArrogantBustard]

Eventually, someone will catch the one that ate Jimmy Hoffa.

[Scythian]

EPA study finds high levels of contaminants in lake fish nationwide

By Scott Learn, The Oregonian
November 10, 2009, 3:30PM


A study by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found high levels of the neurotoxin mercury in game fish in 49 percent of lakes and reservoirs nationwide.

The study, released today, also found polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs -- a mostly banned industrial chemical and probable carcinogen -- in game fish at levels of potential concern in 17 percent of lakes and reservoirs sampled across the nation.

The EPA randomly selected 500 lakes and reservoirs for the testing, including nine in Oregon and 14 in Washington. It tested predator fish such as bass and trout and bottom-feeding fish such as catfish and carp for contaminants. The agency did not immediately release separate test results for each water body.

Burning fossil fuels, primarily coal, accounts for nearly half of mercury air emissions caused by human activity in the United States, the EPA says. In Oregon, Portland General Electric's Boardman coal plant and an Ash Grove Cement kiln in Baker County have been the focus of mercury reduction efforts.

Regulators have concluded that PCBs, widely used in industry in the 1940s and 1950s, are the main contaminant of concern in the Portland Harbor Superfund site.

The EPA urged sport fishermen, women of child bearing age and children to follow fish consumption advisories.