Handling Catties

[disorderly]

You can hold them safely behind the head.
Slide your hand up their body until the dorsal spine sits between thumb & pointer finger then hold on.

Treat unwanted fish with respect......

I've used this method since I was a little kid and never been spiked.
You do need to commit to it though....don't stuff about and let it flap around.Be firm and use a rag if you don't want to have to scrape the slime off..it never used to worry me though...just rubbed it off on my shirt.
BTW, I'm talking about Eel tailed catties or dewies and I used to eat many a meal of them and yellowbellies and cod out of the Gwydir River on our family property.
The smaller ones are very tasty.

Scott

[SASSYJNR]

They Are Easy To Grab , Put Your Thumb In Their Mouth (im Serious) And Grab Either Under Or On Top Of Their Head With You Other Fingers, Completely Safe, I Have Never Been Stung By Them Holding Them This Way (touch Wood), Even The Large Ones, Take My Word For It, It Is So Easy

[Keechie]

my dad has a mate that got hit by one, this guy is a big bulky man about 6'4" and really muscly and he said its the worst ever pain he has felt. what i ahve learnt off him is to snap off the top barb about an inch down using pliers then once done remove your hook/ lure grab em by the mouth with pliers and chuck em back.i let them have the hook if its a hook as i think its too cruel to injure them just for something that will ruust out of them in aobut a week max but if its a lure straight away and off with the barb.

regards,
keechie

[Breambuster33]

never caught one
by the sounds of it never hope i do

[PNG1M]

I have handed hundreds of those mongrel silvery forktail catties over the years and I agree with Chep Buxley about sliding the hand up behind the dorsal fin.
Make sure you squeez yard and get you fingers & thmb right up under their ribs.
Makes 'em squeak a bit more than usual and you can usually get enough leverage to get the hook out before giving them a good fling high up on the bank in amongst the lantana. Or these days, back into the water.
Alternatively, use some fish handling pliers of some description.

Cheers....

[BR65]

I was the unfortunate recipient of the title "verminator", due to the insane number of catties I hooked one trip to Mondy, trust me, lip grippers and 9 inch pliers, dont let em in the boat

[Steve B]

At the risk of getting offside with some on my third post (you get that) catties or any other fish for that matter don't need to be bashed to death because they're considered a pest.

At further risk of ridicule (I got no pride ) I reckon the big ones are great to catch, might not go like a barra but take a wide variety of lures, this one was taken off Lake Kununurra on a surface crawler by my young fella.

As for treating the injury, hot water's great but so to is pi$$ing on it, when its all you got its worth the shot, the pain is pretty intense.

Seen the result of a cattie left on the rocks to die, got trod on a few days later, the spine went through a wetboot and right into the foot, poor fella was in a bad way by the time they got him to a hospital.

Dick,

No riducule from me mate, everyone is entitled to share their views thats what its all about. I shouldn't have promoted my disrespect for the catfish. I agree with you. I reckon they hit HARD and fight really well for the first bit., it just frustrates you when you realise they are catties and not barra!!

Thats not the reason why I kill them either. They give the barra fingerlings a real hiding at Monduran. There are MILLIONS of catties in Monduran and they really need thinning out for anything else to survive in there. The original fishing comps held at Monduran (pre-stocking) were designed to clean the dam up a bit (getting rid of catties) before the stocking program. I beleive they averaged 5 tonne of catfish each year for the first 3 years. subsequent years were well over 2-3 tonnes. There is still no shortage of them....ask anyone who has fished the dam. On the plus side...they are great fun for kids!! just pull up to ANY tree in the dam and use bait (squid is my favorite) and the catties come from everywhere!!! great fun!As for eating...I would eat the squid first!!!

Rockfish has stated the correct first aid for a spike. Thanks mate.

We had a lady put a cattie spike thru the webbing of her hand between thumb/first finger (sorry, I am a paramedic). I have rarely seen a person in such pain!!!! HOT HOT water and 20mg of morphine and she was still in quite a deal of pain. they must hurt BAD!!!! (Not sure about p.i.s.sing on it though, I thought that was only for jellyfish ect) I can see the headline in the courier mail now.... "paramedic wee wee's on patient".....bad career move

cheers steve

[the_matrix]

I can see the headline in the courier mail now.... "paramedic wee wee's on patient".....bad career move
cheers steve

Shit Steve dont get any ideas next week!
Just to follow on from the catfish thing, a few years back I was casting crazy deeps late one night off one of Awoonga deep points.
I hooked this thing in about 20 feet of water, it stripped line for as long and as fast as any 110 has ever done, called it for a metrey and up came wop wop wop the king of all catfish. I reckon it would have given 10-12kg a nudge.
Mate that thing went!
Cheers
Jas

[PNG1M]

Good point by Steve B...the fact that the catties can reek havoc amongst other species due to their competiveness for similar food sources and gobbling up native fish fingerlings etc etc.

A few years back I would never buy Nile Perch fillets from Coles or wherever as I thought I would be contributing to their demise. BUT...I ended up going to Uganda and living there for 4 years...and yes I did fish for Nile Perch in Lake Victoria...AND I found out that they are not a native species of that area but were introduced in the late 1800s from further down the Nile.

They are quite good on the tooth and not unlike the barra - but more 'carp like' in their behaviour. Fast growing and prolific breeders they have been directly responsible for the outright "extinction" of many local native fish species that used to inhabit Lake Victoria.

So if you see any Nile Perch fillets for sale "BUY UP BIG" then you'll be helping the local fishermen make a quidd and you'll be helping protect the natives of Lake Victoria in the process. The biggest Nile Perch I ever saw was 113kg in weight.
It was caught by an ex-pat when trolling and they had to lift it up by a fork lift to weigh it. So imagine how many native fish eggs a creature that size would scoff down!! Apparently the largest Nile Perch ever recorded was 165kg....C---r--i--k--e--y!!!

Like the catfish, Nile Perch are voratious feeders and compete with other 'less hardy' critters. So I reckon I might go back to hurling captured catties up the bank and into the lantana - to help preserve the kind of fish I'd rather have around.

One old bloke I knew once used to snap the catfish's top barbed dorsal fin off with a pair of pliers before he threw them up the bank - and that was just in case they slipped back in and if so, wouldn't get caught up so easily in his 'square hooks' when he put them out.

Hmmm..!?

[Dick Pasfield]

Thats not the reason why I kill them either. They give the barra fingerlings a real hiding at Monduran. There are MILLIONS of catties in Monduran and they really need thinning out for anything else to survive in there.

Fair enough Steve, I'm not sure if I'd have the same views, but you're the man on the spot I'm not. I certainly understand and appreciate what you're saying.

As for their competitiveness have a look at this little poor fella. Took a surface lure and was in the process of being skipped back to the boat when the big one snaffled it.

Both released, both a bit dazed about what had just happened (posted elsewhere btw if the pic looks familiar)

[PNG1M]

I think I remember "Fisho" (Fishing World) saying once about hooking a cattie that "any fish on a lure is a good fish.."

I've caught catties on lures before and although the actual hook-up is great, once you haul in to see its a cattie...to me it's "not one of those bloody mongrels"

[Celestial_Teapot]

Thanks for all of your replies and advice - I am now the proud owner of a set of lip-grippers & long nosed pilers!

If i catch a small one i might just try BBQ'ing it

Having said that i don't have a boat and the dam levels are lower than i thought so we might not end up catching anything from the banks - I'll let you how we get on.

Thanks again.

[Bronson]

i just stay as far away from those things as i can but when they come along i use boger grips and it didnt help when i forgot my pliers so i just cut the hook out with a very sharp knife


bron

[PNG1M]

Hey Dick Pasfield,

I must say that after a second and third squizz, the photo you have there is pretty amazing.

If you were casting some hard bodied lures, judging by the size of the smaller cattie that the bigger one tried to swallow, you'd be aiming a a pretty chunky lure. What would the size ratio be you reckon???

I won't get into lure size just now as that's probably a topic best left the for the tacke forum... (but thanks again for the photo...nice work!)

[Dick Pasfield]

Yes PNG1M its a good example of a catties' aggression, little one went to bite off something bigger than what it could chew and found itself as live bait. Had it happen more then once too. Actually had the larger fish snared not on the lure (as in that pics case) but on the spines of the smaller fish wedged into the larger ones throat.

Got to feel for this poor sucker we found floating on Lake Argyle. The bony had started to rot, the cattie was all sunburnt on the belly but did slowly swim away when we got the bony out.

On topic again trust me on the pi$$ing on the wound thing it works, might not be your first alternative but when the option is hours of pain its not a bad one.