OUtlook For record-Class Catches

California Dreamin’

The status of record-class channel cats in California remains muddled for several reasons. First, as we mentioned, the largest channel cats all have come from pay ponds. These water-supply impoundments are owned by county water departments but are leased to private businesses that stock catfish during summer and trout during winter. Fish seldom are able to reach trophy size, however, as water departments periodically drain the lake to remove debris from the lake bed. Lake operators often counter this routine drain-and-fill cycle by stocking trophy fish from private hatcheries.

California lists a 52-pound 10-ounce channel cat from the Santa Ana River Lakes as the official record, but we weren’t able to obtain a photograph of the fish. According to Sandra Debanes from Corona Recreation, her company didn’t lease the lake in 1993 when the record fish was caught. “Another organization operated the lake from about 1987 to 1997,” Debanes says, “and we have no record of the fish that were stocked or caught during this period.”

Since the lake would have been drained and filled several times during this 10-year period, though, it’s likely that the fish would have been nearly the same size when it was stocked as when it was caught. “We typically net the large fish when the lake is being drained and transfer them to one of the other waters we manage,” Debanes adds.

This allows managers to inventory the number and size of the fish in the lake, then advertise this information to anglers. And with so many competitive operations in southern California, the lake with the most and biggest fish often draws the most attention from anglers.

“Since we reacquired the fishing rights to Santa Ana River Lakes three years ago,” Debanes says, “all of the big catfish taken from the lake have been blues. Since the lake was drained by the Orange County Water Department last summer, though, the only catfish species we’ve stocked have been channels obtained from a hatchery in Brawley, California. Most of these fish average about two to four pounds, but some approach the 16-pound mark. All of the blue cats that remained in the lake were transferred to Anaheim or Corona lakes, which historically have been our top producers of big catfish.”

Irvine Lake also produced a 50-pound channel cat in 1996 that has been recognized as the 10-pound line-class record by the Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame (FWFHF) and a 44-pounder in 1995 that the IGFA lists as the 16-pound record. It seems clear from the photographs, though, that both are blue cats. Asked about other big channel cats taken from Irvine Lake, manager J.R. Smith said, “To the best of my knowledge, all of the big cats (over 40 pounds) taken from Irvine have been blues.”

The Controversy Continues

Both major record-keeping organizations require positive species identification by a fishery professional, but that doesn’t mean that mistakes don’t happen. Most ardent catmen, for example, would recognize the photograph of the IGFA 8-pound line-class record channel cat as a flathead. But fishery biologists who haven’t handled many catfish can and sometimes do make the same mistakes as anglers, misidentifying mid-range blues or flatheads as large channels.

Our purpose is not to point out the mistakes made by record-keeping organizations or fishery scientists, but rather to illustrate the rarity of giant channel catfish. Accurate records serve an important function by demonstrating the size a particular fish species is capable of attaining. Erroneous records, on the other hand, may have an opposite effect. In California, South Dakota, and other states across the country, blues or even flatheads that have been misidentified as channel cats deter an accurate assessment of regional productivity and prevent record-class channel cats from receiving the attention they deserve.

This likely is the case in Mississippi, too, which lists a 51-pound 12-ounce fish taken from Lake Tom Bailey in 1997 as the state record. This 234-acre lake near Meridian produced the last five state-record channel cats, including a 48-pound 11-ouncer in 1995 that still is recognized as the 20-pound line-class record by the FWFHF. But once again, the photographs we’ve obtained aren’t encouraging for the anglers who hold these records.

Bubba Hubbard with the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries, and Parks says Lake Tom Bailey historically has been a top producer of large channel cats, but biologists aren’t sure why. “So far as I know,” Hubbard adds, “there never was any controversy about the identity of present or former state-record channel cats. The lake is only half full of water right now to repair a problem with the levee, which may give us the opportunity to investigate the catfish population, forage base, and other factors that could contribute to such an unusual fishery.”

When asked about the possibility that blue cats instead of channels were stocked, Hubbard researched the lake’s stocking records. “Channel cats typically are stocked in the fall when they’re about eight inches long,” Hubbard says. “The last crop was planted in 1997, but prior to that, channels were stocked in 1995, 1994, 1991, 1989, 1987, 1984, 1982, and 1976. The fish stocked in 1994 came from our Lyman Hatchery, which also contains blue cats. It’s possible that some of those fish could have been blue cats or even hybrids, but it’s unlikely that they could have reached such a large size in such a short time.

“In 1982, though, the fish stocked in Tom Bailey came from the Meridian National Fish Hatchery,” Hubbard continued. “Mississippi took ownership of that hatchery in the mid-1990s; but in 1982 it was operat