Catfish from a dam

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About a month ago (I only got the pics yesterday) with a couple of friend we were going to a dam in the mountains nearby. At the last moment they cancelled so I went myself.

During the afternoon I got 8 good size tilapias on dough bait and a few of small ones, after sunset I put a small palm sized tilapia (dead with belly cut open) on a hook and thrown it maybe 10 meters from the bank.
With darkness the water was boiling everywhere tilapia were feeding and being chased around.

Got a first bite but after hook up fish went into snags and the line snapped.

Rerigged and maybe 15 minutes later the line is going of the reel pretty fast, let the fish take maybe 20 meters, it stopped I have closed the reel and hooked it. It also got into snags but with a bit of run along the bank got it free. As the line was only 3kg it took over 45 minutes to bring it close, with a led head lamp I could see that this was a good size catfish. My landing net was maybe 40cm across so that was "a bit too small" for the task. Got fish tired some more and had to figure out how to get it on the bank. A while ago I have read about a way to grasp the catfish lower jaw with a fish on the back so with no other solutions possible attempted such a trick and it worked perfectly.
(turn the fish on the backside, insert your thumb in the mouth, grasp the lower jaw, hold tight and in one move get the fish out of the water, this is using the weight of the fish to stop it from closing it's mouth).

At home weighted it and it came to 10.3kg. Not bad.

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And another pic.

[onionpants]

I love those eel-tailed catfish. I'm jealous

[szopen]

I actually think that it is not eel tailed catfish but another species.
This is the same catfish that lives in Europe (Silurus Glanis I think) there it grows up to 100kg, here in Asia up to 40-50kg so this is just a small model.
(I got a few in this range over last few years, still waiting for a bigger one)

Like the american blue and chanell cats it is quite nice to eat.

[bidkev]

Very good going for 3kilo line. Well done mate.

kev

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Kev,

It took over 45 minutes, lots of drag adjustements and a fair bit of running along the bank.

Still the trickiest part was getting it out of the water, I was actually surprised that that jaw grasp trick worked.
I will bring the gaff next time.

[Panda]

They get some big catties in Asia!

[NeMo84]

i am not a big fan of catties but on 3kg line and 45 mins fightin it, thats a top effort mate, especially after your friends piked out and u went it alone, we dont have catties like that over here but its a beauty all the same, well done mate

Carlos [smiley=2thumbsup.gif]

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Carlos,

I remember we have discussed the "good catfish" thing a while ago. These we get here are top eating fish if coming from clean water and water in the dam where this one was caught is very clean.

But it is a very tolerant fish and there are plenty of them in the river in the city (Pearl River). There are some big ones as well but with the water quality in the "horrible" range I do not even try fishing there (I live on an island on the river).

Panda,

The fish in your picture is the same species (bigger model) but I would guess that this was caught in Europe when looking at the guys.
There they do grow very big.
In here in South Asia there is more of them but rarely in this size (well I didn't get one yet).

There are some very big catfish in Thailand with the Mekong Catfish being the biggest one. I think a few moths ago somebody got a 300kg one. Unlike most of catfish in the world Mekong Catfish is vegeterian so dough bait made from bread and coconut milk is used.