Arkansas Rivers Turn Out Big Catfish
Electrofishing aids biologists in sampling catfish.
Andy Yung, the supervisor in the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission’s (AGFC) Camden office of the Fisheries Division, said staff there sampled the Ouachita and Saline Rivers within Felsenthal National Wildlife Refuge earlier this month for flathead and blue catfish and noted high catch rates and many that were over 10 pounds.
Fish were collected using low-frequency electrofishing. Biologists removed a pectoral spine from a subsample of catfish caught to determine their age (this removal of the pectoral fin does not harm the fish and they are returned to where they were caught). In addition, weight and length of each fish was measured to help assess the health of these fish populations.
Yung said that the 531 catfish (285 flatheads and 251 blues) being collected during the sampling marked a high rate of catch. Of the catfish sampled, nearly 20 percent were over 24 inches long and nearly one in 10 fish were over 10 pounds. The heaviest fish was a flathead weighing in at 31.5 pounds (pictured above).
Anglers wishing to target these fish should focus their efforts around the outside edges of river bends in deep water. For flatheads, live bait often works best, while blues often prefer cut bait.
Note: The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission offers a Master Angler Program for qualifying catches. Anglers catching catfish of the qualifying weight or better receive a pin representing the species and a letter of recognition. Catfish categories are blue catfish 20 pounds, bullhead catfish 2 pounds, channel catfish 12 pounds, and flathead catfish 20 pounds. For more information on the Master Angler Program visit the website by clicking here.
