Decided to give Willard a shot today for some catfish fillets to replace the ones we are having for supper tonight (Tube Dudes Catfish Ramaki). Little did I know that I would latch on to the biggest cat I’ve ever pulled out of Willard. This puppy was 24 inches long and weighed 7 ½ pounds.
Here is a picture of it next to the tape measure.
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Here is a happy camper.
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This is how it compares to normal, every day cats out of Willard.
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Nice fish but i don’t mean to be rude but i disagree with you keeping it you should have realist it. Willards catfish population of big cats is not what it used to be.
what did you catch it on any ways.
Nice one. I got a couple out of there about that size last year. Nothing like the 15 to 20 pounders we used to get…but definitely stretch your string and bend your stick. A real surprise when all you have been getting is the cookie cutters.
I generally release the bigger ones too. The smaller ones are better eating, but there is a healthy spawning population for the amount of water in the lake. No harm no foul.
First Nice fish. Second when the spawn was in full swing and I was catching bigger cats out there I floated into the bank in my usual spot and was surrounded by 24 inchers at about 1 foot of water. I could not get them to bite for nothing. They would take the bait and put it their mouths and spit it out before I could set the hook.
I would have released it as well only because the bigger one taste like cra* and are much better spawners, but its your choice catching big fish or only small one…
Again nice catch…
Willard’s relatively small population of big cats is simply because of a bottleneck in food. The “cookie cutters”, many of which are sexually mature by the way, have a hard time jumping to more protein rich food sources.
A decade ago, when I was a researcher for the DWR, I was assigned to Willard exclusively for one year. Back then, it was determined that catfish were having a hard time jumping from plankton and the smaller macroinvertibrates to a diet of crawfish and fish. The main factor seemed to be competition from, of all things, gizzard shad. The introduction of wiper was, in part, because of this. Gizzard shad were successfully outcompeting with the juvenile (larval and fry) fish that would, if they got large enough, eventually use gizzard shad as a food source.
It was determined at that time that the “cookie cutters” were up to seven years old. Sexual maturity comes between two and five years of age in channel catfish.
It would be reasonable to say that the size of a large catfish in willard is not significantly influenced by other factors such as genetics (particularly since size in a given species of fish is quite elastic), and more a factor of being able to transition to a higher calorie diet.
Nice kitty (dubob) !!! As a payin fisherman your intitled to that biggun.. Dont listen to the hecklers..[;)][;)]..There is more big kittys in Willard then most guys know of.. You just gotta mo ve round till ya get into the bigger cats …Yeah theres plenty o cookies to be had but…Did u check the stomach contents by chance ??? just curious… Fish on ..FISHAMANIAC..[;)]
i wound have to say a 24 inch 7 lbs cat from UL is not what you could call huge in any sense of the word… it is a nice fish and just right for eating. any cat fish under 10 lbs is just right for eating. i’m sure it had some nice fat flites on it!.. but for a lake that has cat’s well over 20 lbs a 7 lbs fish is not going to make a diffrence in spowing any time soon.. and just looking at the head and body of the fish looks like a male to me any way.. [sly]..
nice fish dude!!
i hit one over the weekend that was well over 10 lbs.. but not any where near UL.. [sly] not going to say were it was tho thats way i did not even post a report.. i did let it go tho and keep some smaller ones for the smoker ..
