Man Catches 104 Pound Blue Cat In The Mississippi River!

Caught near Natchez. Caught on a trot line/Bush hook.

Ironically,  it's the second time this year the state record has been broken in Mississippi. Earlier in the year,  a 131 pounder was caught with a rod and reel!  Now that's a feat!
Guess where....... in the Mississippi River in Natchez! Lol

Not Sure what the official Louisiana State records is. But I remember long ago, it was caught in the Mississippi River,  also.

I saw one at the fish market one time, weigh out at 155 and was way bigger than that. Much longer. That might be a female full of eggs and dense.

I caught one that was 85 pounds. I took it to the local slaughterhouse. Lol.
They let me use the facilities and electric hoist to hang it and gut it. Then skin it.

A Blue cat that size is not very palatable as it contains a lot of fat and oil. But prolly very good for you.

We cut it into one inch steaks on the band saw. They were as big around as a 400 lb calf round steak . Lolol.

I gave them half. Mostly because I thought nobody was going to able to eat it.

You can't fry dat.
I put a steak in a large shallow pan(like a cookie sheet or broiler pan)  after seasoning it and adding some dill and onion slices. No need for water or liquid. The fish will make its own.

Then into a 250F degree oven , covered with foil.

That's how I cook bony fish like Gaspergoo, too! You can just flake it off the bones after its cooked with a fork or spoon. Then use it to make fish balls or in Courtboullion(fish soup) .

The catfish was damn good with no off flavor.

You can also do the same thing while baking and add tomato sauce or ro-tel for a piquant sauce.

C'était trop bon!
Say Tay throw bon!


https://www.brproud.com/news/man-reels-in-104-pound-blue-catfish-from-mississippi-river?utm_source=wgmb-wvla-wbrl_app&utm_medium=social&utm_content=share-link

I live across the Mississippi River  river from St. Francisville.  110 seems to be the record here. Right in my back yard where I caught the 85 pounder. Lol.

But I'm going to tell you straight up , commercial fisherman catch them bigger than that all the time and couldn't care less. All they want is there measly pay of 54 cents a pound , undressed.
Dat goes to the cat food company.

https://www.gameandfishmag.com/editorial/fishing_catfish-fishing_la_0605_01/245274

I was just thinking, Goo flesh is always flaky and white. Good stuff but no one wants to fool with all the bones. Much tastier than a catfish.

But even commercial fisherman used to just turn them loose because no markets here would buy them because they could not sell enough of them .

Leave it to a Cajun to find a market . Lol  

I was fishing crawfish on the Mississippi River bottoms here close to home and selling to a new buyer to the north. Crawfish was not his specialialty.  He dealt exclusively in fish.

But he had a market or 2 for large crawfish. He had only 2 fisherman. One was was his employee who fished till lunch and the other was me. And I was through for lunch too. Lol. And then I'd go to work , too!

My usual buyer started whining and could not move enough of them anymore.
And besides, the catch had waned out at the end of the season .

No more 50-60 day.

If my memory serves me right, I was catching 15 sacks or about 600 pounds every morning of some really big stuff. I think the price was 40-50 cents pound. Lol.

Nothing like today . And that wasn't that long ago!
I could gross 240- 300 every morning, minus bait and gasoline, expenses, while it lasted, and still make half a day of  work.

Now this coonass buyer showed me a fairly new reefer trailer he bought and parked on his lot. Asked me what a thought about it.

He told me he was going to fill it up with frozen  Gaspergoos and ship to California.
Pet food. He prolly lied and was getting twice as much as he told me.
"I'm offering my fisherman a nickel a pound for the goos. And you know what?  I'm going to get um . And all my competion goos  too". Lol

If you have 50 or 100 pounds of goos.  That paid all your boat gas.  

Told me he'd  get a minimum of $1.05 pound and ship 30 or 40,000 pounds or more on the back roads if he had too.

He did have a lot of electricity in it freezing those things..  

A coonass from avoyelles parish is not like a coonass from Lafayette parish.

No political correct here.
They're like gypsies,  daygos,  and Jews when it comes to business!

And they will f@ck you every chance they get!