If you have a Facebook account or e-mail address, you have probably seen the photos of anglers in the water with huge yellow-skinned catfish with a subject line like, “Angler’s Noodle World Record Flathead” or something like that. Well for starters, “noodling” is the practice of feeling around with your hands and grabbing catfish by the mouth and wrestling them to shore.
Recently social media has lit up with rumors of these giant cats so I am here to address it again but in more detail.
The photos passed around the Internet of anglers with super-sized flatheads are not really flatheads at all. They are Wels catfish from Europe. They look almost exactly like flatheads except for the fins, which grow like a tadpole. And then there is the size. Wels grow up to 10 feet in length and catches of fish over six feet are common. The world record flathead was just over five feet in length.
My wife Lisa and I both caught Wels over seven feet in the Segra River in Spain in 2005 and nearly everyone who sees the photos thinks they are flatheads until we tell them differently.
We’ve talked about this before here but have never had this level of detail of the story. Make sure and catch the podcast below to fill in even more gaps.
Interestingly the guide on our trip told us that divers in that river work on and inspect the dam in shark cages. The Wels (which can grow to over 10 feet in length) are aggressive enough to attack them. I was a bit skeptical of the attacks but then we saw the massive scar across his back of where a Wels bit him attempting to land it.
In America we constantly hear stories of catfish “as big as Volkswagens” that scared dam divers. I don’t believe that story in America but perhaps in Spain.
The next time you see photos of giant catfish supposedly “noodled” look closely at the fins. It is probably a Wels.
And the next time you hear of giant catfish below the dams, realize there is no way they are the size of an economy car.
Listen to a detailed account of Chester’s giant catfish dive and Spain fishing adventure below.
Chester Moore, Jr.
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