Outlook For Record-Class Catches

Secrets Of A Productive Reservoir

When Stevens first began sampling big channel cats, he wasn’t even sure what they were. “I had three different opinions from three topnotch taxonomists,” Stevens says. “One said they were huge white catfish, one thought they were channel cats, and a third insisted that they were blue cats. I eventually sent a 55-gallon drum of catfish of various sizes to a catfish expert at the Smithsonian Institute for positive identification. He said they definitely were channel cats, but probably deserved a sub-species ranking because they were different from channel cats sampled elsewhere in North America.

“At the time, though, Santee Cooper produced more than big channel cats,” Stevens adds. “It has to be considered one of the most fascinating fisheries ever studied, almost unique in its production of giant fish. Roland Martin and other top bass guides called it the greatest largemouth bass mecca in the world, and pickerel anglers caught dozens of fish in the six- to eight-pound range. The reservoir also hosted the first and probably finest landlocked striped bass fishery ever documented, and also produced many record-class crappie, bluegill, and redear sunfish.

“The long growing season certainly contributed to the numbers of big fish at Santee Cooper, but other impoundments in the same region never demonstrated the same productivity. Sea-run herring entering the lake through the lock certainly added a new element to the food chain, but the number of gizzard shad we sampled never compared to midwestern impoundments. Some researchers, for example, estimated 1,200 pounds of shad per acre in some lakes, while I found only 350 pounds per acre at Santee Cooper. The last time I sampled shad, I found only 75 pounds per acre, and one year, I didn’t capture a single shad fingerling. I wish I knew why the lake is so productive, but I don’t.”

At the conclusion of his 1960 report, Stevens noted that while channel cats were abundant in the Tailrace Sanctuary, they didn’t completely fill the niche provided by the 60,000 acres of water in Lake Moultrie and failed to use the 100,000 acres in Lake Marion. He recommended that flatheads and blue catfish be introduced into the reservoir, and in February 1966, he followed through. A relatively small number of blues and flatheads from Arkansas were released into the Diversion Canal, forever changing the channel catfish fishery at Santee Cooper.

“There’s no question that the channel cat population was curtailed by the introduction of blues and flatheads,” says Scott Lamprecht, a fishery biologist with the South Carolina Wildlife Resources Department. “But fishing pressure may be the primary culprit. Few anglers targeted big catfish in the early days, preferring instead to catch numbers of smaller bullheads and white cats. Most of the big channel cats probably never left the Tailrace Sanctuary below Pinopolis Dam. They were left alone to grow at maximum rates and achieve top-end size for the species.

“We don’t see channel cats approaching record proportions these days, but their numbers have rebounded since the hydrilla outbreak in the early 1980s. The reservoir supports incredible numbers of channel cats in the 6- to 12-pound range, and fish approaching the 20-pound mark occasionally are reported. Competition with larger blues and flatheads likely limits their top-end size, but another giant channel catfish always is possible.”

Controversial Records

In recent years, the records for muskie, smallmouth bass, and walleye all have fallen not to larger fish but to discredit. According to Mike Leech, President of the International Game Fish Association (IGFA), though, Mr. W.B. Whaley’s application to the 1964 Field & Stream fishing contest is well documented. It includes a signed and notarized affidavit from Whaley; a report on the certification of the scale used to weigh the fish, which was checked by the South Carolina Department of Agriculture; a form signed by Dr. Reeve Bailey, Curator of the University of Michigan Museum of Fishes, which verifies the fish’s identity; and even a line sample.

But what about the former world-record channel cat, still the second largest on record? The 55-pound South Dakota record was taken from the James River by Roy Groves in May 1949. We know that the James is a far different river today, suffering from excess siltation as a result of farming practices throughout the watershed. Twenty-pound channel cats now are as unusual in the James as giant blue cats are in the South Dakota section of the Missouri River. Perhaps, though, record-class channels never existed in the Jim.

Look at the photo of Roy Groves with his record channel cat, then compare it to the picture of his former world-record blue cat, a 94-pounder taken from the same area. Beyond the obvious observation that Groves is wearing the same clothes in both photos, it’s also clear that both fish hang the same way from the scale. The barrel-shaped head and straight edge along the long anal fin seem to indicate that both fish are blue cats. Asked if he had any doubt about the identity of either fish, In-Fisherman editor and staff fishery biologist Steve Quinn stated, “No, they’re both blue cats.”

So what about the other huge channel cats currently in the record books? Our research found only three other fish exceeding the 50-pound mark: two from separate pay fishing lakes in California and a third from Tom Bailey, a tiny lake in Mississippi. From the photos we obtained and the conversations we’ve had with lake managers and biologists, we believe that these fish also might be blue catfish or even blue and channel hybrids misidentified as channel cats.

The Hybrid Question

According to Dr. John Liu, a professor of molecular biology at Auburn University, a blue cat and channel cat hybrid is easy to create through artificial propagation, but is unlikely in nature. “We typically squeeze the eggs from a female blue cat, remove the testes from a male channel cat and fertilize the eggs in a beaker,” Liu says. “The fertilization rate usually is low—something like 10 to 20 percent for hybrids compared to 60 to 70 percent for either parent species, but the hybrids offer several advantages for catfish farmers.

“Hybrids tend to grow faster than either blues or channel cats, in part because they seem to feed more aggressively,” Liu continues. “They also have a stronger immune system, since each parent species shows resistance to a particular set of diseases, and the hybrids seem to inherit both sets. Most importantly, though, their body shape is slightly different than blues and channels and also tends to be more uniform. This improved shape often increases processing yields by four to seven percent and makes the fish easier to seine from ponds during harvest.

“No one knows the top-end size of a hybrid catfish, because aquaculturists aren’t interested in growing large fish. I assume they would grow larger than a true strain channel catfish, but not so large as a blue cat. It’s also difficult to distinguish a hybrid by appearance, though a simple genetic test can quickly and accurately determine a fish’s identity. Most of the physical characteristics fall somewhere between a blue and channel cat, but probably most resemble a blue.”

“You probably can tell the difference if you’ve seen numbers of hybrids,” says Randall Goodman, Experimental Station Superintendent at Auburn. “Lacking that experience, though, it’s a tough call. The anal fin ray count usually is intermediate and therefore not conclusive. Likewise, the overall appearance of the anal fin—either long and straight like a blue or shorter and more rounded like a channel—usually falls somewhere in between on a hybrid. On smaller hybrids, the barbels tend to be thin and light colored, while channels have thicker and darker barbels. The swim bladder is unique to each species, though it can be observed only postmortem.

“My feeling is that few hybrid catfish are swimming in public waters. I don’t know of any state agency or private hatchery that supplies fish for recreational fishing that is producing or has attempted to produce hybrid catfish. It’s not outside the realm of possibility that such a cross could naturally occur, but I’ve never seen it happen without hormone injections. All of the hybrids we’ve seen were the result of artificial fertilization.”