PROPOSED CATFISH RULES CHANGE

[Jaybird1980]

As an example on the morning of July 4th, I was fishing near a boat ramp at Cataract and an older guy set up near us on the bank. He caught probably a half dozen channel cats that couldn't have been a foot long and kept every one of them.
As for me, I agree a good keeper size is in that 14"-20"ish range. IMO there's a point were they don't taste as good and have more fat on them.

In general, I would prefer to see a daily limit vs a minimum size regulation. Over the years I've seen people get on the bite and would just keep feeling them in an tossing the fish in a Rubber maid tote. They wouldn't stop until it was full or the fish quit biting. I'm certainly not an expert, but I can see where that can take a toll. Especially on smaller fisheries.

That's the problem with blanket regulations. You can't treat all fisheries the same, because they're different. Flatheads especially can put a hurting of other fish population.

 

[Remington 90T]

I put my Mississippi River cat in the cow tank for a week - Takes the muddy taste out of the big ones.

 

[greg]

I put my Mississippi River cat in the cow tank for a week - Takes the muddy taste out of the big ones.

That works good on turtles also…

 

[two70]

Any concerns about eating too much fish as far as toxins?

Most people are not going to eat enough fish from most waters over a long enough term to ever have anything to worry about. There are exceptions with certain people(kids and pregnant women), waters(most notably the tributaries of Lake Michigan), and species (large, active predators such as salmon, trout, and to a lesser extent, flathead).

 

[two70]

Off topic….. but curious what do you do with the BIG catfish obviously people eat them? But I caught a BIG to me blue cat in Alabama and fried it up …. Like other fish and it tasted like crap lol I could have cooked it wrong…… but I blames the fish.

If you're going to eat the bigger channel and blue cats then you need to remove all the fat for the best tasting meat. The water they come from makes a difference as well. Flatheads are different though. IMO, they taste better than their cousins in the first place but get better as they get bigger, at least up to a point. There's a lot of harvest pressure on big flatheads and that is the main driver for the trophy fish regulations.

 

[greg]

http://redirect.viglink.com/?key=71fe2139a887ad501313cd8cce3053c5&subId=1336408&u=https://www.in.gov/nrc/files/item_5_AC_Aug_2023.pdf

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Anyone go to the meeting this week?

Any reports?