Why don’t you simply ask @Gatopescado?
In the 1950s there were some articles in mens’ magazines, like True, about ‘noodling’. In the rural south young males would dive in lakes to seek out holes where large catfish hid. Noodling required that they reach into the hole far enough that they could tickle the fish, which would respond by sucking the hand and arm into its mouth. The young man then wrestled the fish to shore. This was about 25 years into TVA so the fish had time to grow.
A fifty or sixty pound fish would feed a lot of poor folks. As with anything it became a sport among locals and fish as large as 100-150 pounds were reported.
I was (and did). Like you, I didn’t have a reason as a kid to NOT believe it.
There were MANY things we were spoon-fed about our local dam (one of the few things visible from space, largest earthworks in the country at the time, “practically bottomless”).
This was the Orman Dam at what is now called the Belle Fourchette Reservoir near Belle Fourche, SD.
What a strange thing to learn is a commonality across many areas…
I had a college friend in the 80s from Tennessee who swore that “Channel cats” under dams were large enough to kill humans.
And ISTR Hunter S. Thompson wrote about catfish by dams as well, but damned if I remember what book.
I heard this story numerous times growing up in the 80’s. “A diver working on the dam, at the deepest part of the lake, was startled by a catfish the size of a car.”
That kind of story really sticks with you, because if you’ve seen catfish feeding, you know a catfish that big could (and would) easily suck down a diver in that huge mouth.
I know catfish can get pretty big, so I didn’t find it wildly unrealistic, but I’m not surprised to learn that cats don’t grow to the size of the car. I’ve never planned on doing any dam-diving, so I never felt it was important to confirm or refute the story.
So while I wouldn’t say that I ever really believe believed it, I more or less assumed it was true-ish until this thread made me think about it.
Takes of giant catfish go back a long way. Huck Finn was said to have caught a 200 pound blue catfish using a skinned rabbit as bait. I heard the stories of giant channel cats as a kid, but the biggest ever caught weighed in at less than 60 pounds. I can believe there are bigger ones out there, but I’m pretty sure none are in the hundred pound range. The version I heard growing up talked about divers seeing the gargantuan catfish at South Holston Dam in northeastern Tennessee. They were said to be diver size, not car size. If I were diving and encountered a fish a third my size I’d probably be prone to exaggerate as well.
BTW, my local dam wasn’t completed until 1962, so the dam (and lake) would only have been 20-something years old when I was hearing the story. Not long to form a population of giants.
Noodling is still very much a real thing. It was a popular activity in St. Louis along the Mississippi rivers upstream from town when I lived there 10+ years ago. Noodling - Wikipedia suggests it’s illegal in MO, but was legal in IL on the other bank of the same river. Illegal noodling sure took place on the MO side too.
Unrelated to the above …
The thing I don’t quite understand about the UL is what the dam has to do with it. Why do giant catfish supposedly grow around a dam, but not elsewhere in the river?
Gives one a feeling of continuity.
Supposedly the deepest, least public spot? It would be less plausible in the 10-foot deep spot where everybody swims.
I’m not frightened or phobic of the dark, murky/deep water, or wild animals but put them together and the creepy dread is intense. Jaws, the garbage compactor monster on the Death Star, noodling for recreation chill me to the bone.
There’s two fundamental things going on here. First, catfish can, in fact, get really, really big, much bigger than most people expect fish to get.
Second, when humans see things, especially animals, that are much bigger than we expect them to be, especially when we see them only very briefly, and in stressful circumstances, we tend to overestimate just how big they are.
Put the two together, and stories of catfish the size of a car are hardly surprising.
That is a Giant Damn Catfish. However, is actually remarkable human-sized, if not a little too heavy.
I never recall hearing that Urban Legend but didn’t grow up around Catfish waters or dams. My Grandpa used to fish for them in the Sacramento Delta area, and they were nothing special. He did pull out some really big ones (compared to what I was used to seeing) out of Topaz Lake
Yep, and apparently legal in Oklahoma. There’s a pretty good documentary about it with music by the Flaming Lips.
I’ve never heard any stories about catfish as big as a car, but have seen impressive catfish in the 150lb range as noted earlier. Those are terrifying enough for me, really.
Chiming in to say I’d never heard this urban legend before. But I grew up in San Jose, where the nearest dams and lakes/reservoirs of any size were way out of town.
I’d also never heard of “noodling” before opening this thread. The whole idea is really grossing me out. Why the hell would anyone want to shove their arm down a fish’s throat? Yuck!
The largest species in North America is the blue catfish and the record is 143 lbs and 57 inches long/47 inches around. Virginia/NC border.
The single longest world catfish caught is the Wels catfish caught in Italy at 9.4 feet (not weighed), while the heaviest was the critically endangered Mekong catfish, at is 8 ft 10 in and 646 lb.
Dams are generally a good place to find food and therefore get large.
To catch it. There are/have been occasions where folks had no tackle or weapon. Gotta do what you can if you’re hungry.
Hey, catfish bark you know.
Big ones sound very gruesome.
That makes it sound like catfish are biting off people’s digits, which would qualify as another urban legend.
Catfish teeth aren’t equipped to do that.
https://a-z-animals.com/blog/catfish-teeth-discover-the-full-story-on-their-bite/
Now, if you go randomly sticking an arm into underwater holes, there might be something in there that could bite off a finger, like a snapping turtle.*
*in the ocean, that’s-a moray.
The official records of fish caught require certain qualifications for sport fishing.
736 pounds,
But you can take that with a grain of salt. Snopes sez UL and they also say that giant dam catfish are an UL.
I am sure car sized dont exist But we know 650 pound ones do, so 736#, while very doubtful- is in the realm of possibility.
I had heard the UL also.
Uh uh. My Unca Pete was missing 2 fingers on his left hand.
He told me a mean catfish bit them off. Well, some times he said he had a tapeworm that made his butt itch…
According to what number beer he was on you’d get varying tales.
