Fish
Channel Catfish
Ictalurus punctatus · also called channel cat, spotted cat, fiddler
The channel catfish is the everyday catfish of North America — the one in the farm pond, on the dinner plate, and at the end of a rod baited with something that smells terrible. It navigates its muddy world with senses that seem borrowed from another animal entirely.
Overview
Ictalurus punctatus is native to central North America and stocked across the continent. It is a scaleless, forked-tailed fish with four pairs of barbels, a nocturnal omnivore that eats insects, crayfish, fish, and carrion. It is the most fished-for and most farmed catfish in the US.
A fish that tastes everything
Its entire skin is covered in taste buds — around a quarter of a million — so it can taste food from a distance and track it in total darkness or muddy water. Its hearing is unusually sharp, thanks to bones linking the swim bladder to the ear.
Spines and noodling
The dorsal and pectoral fins carry sharp, mildly venomous spines that cause a painful, easily infected wound. The male guards its eggs in a dark hole, defending it fiercely — the basis of noodling, catching a catfish by hand.
Status
Least Concern and hugely abundant, both wild and farmed. A problem only where introduced outside North America.
Channel Catfish: common questions
Can a catfish really taste with its whole body?
Yes. A channel catfish has taste buds not only in and around the mouth but scattered across the entire skin surface, from the barbels to the tail, with the highest density on the four pairs of barbels around the mouth. Estimates put the total in the hundreds of thousands. This turns the fish into a swimming tongue — it can detect dissolved food chemicals in the water from a distance, work out roughly where they are coming from, and home in, all without seeing anything. It is a decisive advantage in the turbid, low-visibility water and the night-time feeding that catfish favour.
Do the whiskers sting?
No, the barbels, the "whiskers", are soft, flexible feelers covered in taste buds and are completely harmless. The sting people worry about comes from elsewhere — the first ray of the dorsal fin on the back and the first ray of each pectoral fin on the sides are locking spines, and at the base of each is a venom gland. If a spine punctures skin, usually a hand or foot while unhooking or wading, it delivers venom that causes sharp pain, swelling, and sometimes numbness, and the wound is prone to infection from bacteria on the spine. It is unpleasant rather than dangerous, and handling a catfish with a firm grip behind the pectoral fins avoids it.
What is noodling?
Noodling, also called hand-fishing, grabbling, or catfisting, is catching a catfish by putting your hand into its nesting hole and letting it bite or clamp onto your arm, then hauling it out. It works because a male channel or flathead catfish guarding eggs in a submerged cavity will defend the hole aggressively and bite anything that enters. The practice is traditional in parts of the southern United States, is legal in a limited number of states with a season and rules, and carries real risks, from the catfish's grip and spines to snapping turtles, snakes, beavers, and drowning in submerged holes. It targets exactly the breeding fish that a population depends on, which is why it is tightly regulated.
How big do channel catfish get?
A typical channel catfish caught by an angler is 30 to 55 centimetres and half a kilogram to two kilograms. Fish over 5 kilograms are good ones, and the species can reach around 15 to 20 kilograms in the largest rivers and reservoirs, with the rod-caught record about 26 kilograms from a South Carolina lake. Its relatives get larger still — the flathead catfish of the same region regularly exceeds 20 kilograms, and the blue catfish, the largest North American catfish, has been caught at over 60 kilograms. Farmed channel catfish are harvested small, usually well under a kilogram.