Clive Kenyon
Senior Member
In order to leave the Barbel Rods for Carp? thread to resume on track I have started a dedicated thread to the Wels Catfish.
It seems that there are an increased number of these fish being caught if not widely reported in English waters. There are quite a few lakes that have specifically stocked them, but they are also turning up in the river systems from at least the Trent southwards. I don't know of any caught in the Yorkshire Ouse system, but it is only a matter of time. These fish will have either escaped from stocked lakes during times of flood water or more likely, like the ghost carp at Redmire, have been stocked illegally by anglers. There is also the possibility of an unauthorised release by aquarists as with the terrapins and other fish species turning up all over the place.
Catfish are now resident in French and Spanish rivers and can be found as far south as Greece and even Cyprus. In France they were confined to the eastern most rivers including the Rhone and have spread from there to the point where there is hardly any lake or river of any size that does not have them.
Catfish can breed in UK waters including some rivers. One of my local rivers, The Vienne is fed from a high plateau and the water is noticibly colder then the other main river of the region, The Charente which is a chalk stream in its lower length and fed by numerous warm springs. Even in the higher reaches of the Vienne river, around Limoges catfish can be found. I regularly see a very large catfish nest guarding in summer when my Deeper sonar shows a surface water temperature of 16C or less in the main river. The area where the catfish can be observed is a large area of weedy shallows off the main flow and as such may well be warmer than the main river temperature. There are lots of areas like this on the Vienne; eddies, backwaters and other places where the relatively stagnant water can be warmed by the higher air temperature. On the Charente, navigation means there are locks and other back waters away from the main flow. These are the places where bream spawn and are likely to be warm enough for catfish to reproduce too.
I have read many studies about catfish in various journals. All are infuriatingly lacking in many aspects. One studies the diet of catfish. But only covers juvenile fish up to a foot or so long. Another collects data from many locations, but only has a few examples from where catfish have been recently stocked. That one shows that the overall biomass of fish species is no different whether catfish are present or not and that in waters where catfish have been recently released there is a drop of around 5% in the biomass of non-catfish species. Surprisingly, it does not comment on these statistics. For me, if catfish reduce the biomass of non catfish species and the overall biomass is the same in established waters then the weight of catfish is equal to the loss of weight of other species. In other words a few larger catfish are replacing the numbers of many other fish.
One of the factors of French barbel is the virtual lack of any large fish. There isn't an official record list. but the three largest barbel recorded that I have been able to discover were all caught over thirty years ago and topped by a 7.3 Kg fish. Nobody has beaten the 5Kg 2nd and 3rd placed fish in over thirty years as far as I can discover. Catfish have been in the Loire for around 40 - 50 years and this, according to some old timers corresponds with the demise of barbel numbers and the absence of the larger specimens. It is strange that in a given stretch of river you can find large numbers of carp to over 50lb along with barbel up to around 8lb, but rarely do the barbel go bigger.
Some people have declared that catfish so not prey on healthy fish, but instead mop up dead and dying fish and eat nasty invasive species like signal crayfish. This is in my opinion total ballcocks. I have seen a large catfish take a mid teens carp from my swim before it got chance to take my bait. Another occasion a catfish surged in on a small group of 7lb - 12lb carp that I was keeping in my swim by regular baiting and I have seen them surging after spawning carp in local lakes. There are videos of catfish in a park lake in France taking bathing pigeons. And those French anglers who take catfish for the pot report taking out ducks and coypu from the gut of the catfish. There is a video on youtube of a French angling guide reaching into the gut of a large catfish and retrieving a coypu.
The numbers of these creatures in French rivers is astonishing. I put a couple of videos on the other thread. If you search on youtube for silure plongees you will discover the many videos showing huge numbers of catfish. If you search on silure seine paris you will see anglers landing catfish to almost 100lb from the city centre of Paris, often using beefed up carp poles and Frolics dog biscuits as bait.
Through the daylight hours catfish tend to lay up close to the bank in overhangs or tree roots, or lay in deep water where the light is less. When laying alongside the bank they will often move over to the other side or find another shady spot when the sun moves and lessens their shade. Even when resting up they can be tempted by a well placed dead bait or a jig type rig fished in the deepest part of the river. They react to noise and a little plastic ball containing ball bearings is often used with spinners to create noise. Also, 'clonking' that is striking the water with a wooden marrow type spoon is used to get the attention of the catfish. As the sun sets they move out to shallow water and can be taken with conventional spinning tackle. A bass rod, ABU 6500C and old Voblex has caught me lots of 20lb+ cats on a summer evening. Most takes occur as the lure splashes down, not on the retrieve. In the summer of 2013 a neighbour of mine caught and ate over 15 catfish around 20lb - 25lb without affecting our catch rate, from a stretch of river no more than 100 metres long.
In England I would expect that there will be breeding populations in at least the Severn, Thames, Gt. Ouse and Trent. If I were to fish for one in those rivers and did not want to spend all night bivvied up, I would fish dead baits in match lengths immediately after the matchmen had gone home. The catfish will have switched onto large numbers of distressed and confused fish being released at regular times and I am sure will concentrate in those areas. Regular baiting with large numbers of sardines or sprats will also attract catfish if they are present.
So, love them or hate them, catish are coming to a water near to you.
It seems that there are an increased number of these fish being caught if not widely reported in English waters. There are quite a few lakes that have specifically stocked them, but they are also turning up in the river systems from at least the Trent southwards. I don't know of any caught in the Yorkshire Ouse system, but it is only a matter of time. These fish will have either escaped from stocked lakes during times of flood water or more likely, like the ghost carp at Redmire, have been stocked illegally by anglers. There is also the possibility of an unauthorised release by aquarists as with the terrapins and other fish species turning up all over the place.
Catfish are now resident in French and Spanish rivers and can be found as far south as Greece and even Cyprus. In France they were confined to the eastern most rivers including the Rhone and have spread from there to the point where there is hardly any lake or river of any size that does not have them.
Catfish can breed in UK waters including some rivers. One of my local rivers, The Vienne is fed from a high plateau and the water is noticibly colder then the other main river of the region, The Charente which is a chalk stream in its lower length and fed by numerous warm springs. Even in the higher reaches of the Vienne river, around Limoges catfish can be found. I regularly see a very large catfish nest guarding in summer when my Deeper sonar shows a surface water temperature of 16C or less in the main river. The area where the catfish can be observed is a large area of weedy shallows off the main flow and as such may well be warmer than the main river temperature. There are lots of areas like this on the Vienne; eddies, backwaters and other places where the relatively stagnant water can be warmed by the higher air temperature. On the Charente, navigation means there are locks and other back waters away from the main flow. These are the places where bream spawn and are likely to be warm enough for catfish to reproduce too.
I have read many studies about catfish in various journals. All are infuriatingly lacking in many aspects. One studies the diet of catfish. But only covers juvenile fish up to a foot or so long. Another collects data from many locations, but only has a few examples from where catfish have been recently stocked. That one shows that the overall biomass of fish species is no different whether catfish are present or not and that in waters where catfish have been recently released there is a drop of around 5% in the biomass of non-catfish species. Surprisingly, it does not comment on these statistics. For me, if catfish reduce the biomass of non catfish species and the overall biomass is the same in established waters then the weight of catfish is equal to the loss of weight of other species. In other words a few larger catfish are replacing the numbers of many other fish.
One of the factors of French barbel is the virtual lack of any large fish. There isn't an official record list. but the three largest barbel recorded that I have been able to discover were all caught over thirty years ago and topped by a 7.3 Kg fish. Nobody has beaten the 5Kg 2nd and 3rd placed fish in over thirty years as far as I can discover. Catfish have been in the Loire for around 40 - 50 years and this, according to some old timers corresponds with the demise of barbel numbers and the absence of the larger specimens. It is strange that in a given stretch of river you can find large numbers of carp to over 50lb along with barbel up to around 8lb, but rarely do the barbel go bigger.
Some people have declared that catfish so not prey on healthy fish, but instead mop up dead and dying fish and eat nasty invasive species like signal crayfish. This is in my opinion total ballcocks. I have seen a large catfish take a mid teens carp from my swim before it got chance to take my bait. Another occasion a catfish surged in on a small group of 7lb - 12lb carp that I was keeping in my swim by regular baiting and I have seen them surging after spawning carp in local lakes. There are videos of catfish in a park lake in France taking bathing pigeons. And those French anglers who take catfish for the pot report taking out ducks and coypu from the gut of the catfish. There is a video on youtube of a French angling guide reaching into the gut of a large catfish and retrieving a coypu.
The numbers of these creatures in French rivers is astonishing. I put a couple of videos on the other thread. If you search on youtube for silure plongees you will discover the many videos showing huge numbers of catfish. If you search on silure seine paris you will see anglers landing catfish to almost 100lb from the city centre of Paris, often using beefed up carp poles and Frolics dog biscuits as bait.
Through the daylight hours catfish tend to lay up close to the bank in overhangs or tree roots, or lay in deep water where the light is less. When laying alongside the bank they will often move over to the other side or find another shady spot when the sun moves and lessens their shade. Even when resting up they can be tempted by a well placed dead bait or a jig type rig fished in the deepest part of the river. They react to noise and a little plastic ball containing ball bearings is often used with spinners to create noise. Also, 'clonking' that is striking the water with a wooden marrow type spoon is used to get the attention of the catfish. As the sun sets they move out to shallow water and can be taken with conventional spinning tackle. A bass rod, ABU 6500C and old Voblex has caught me lots of 20lb+ cats on a summer evening. Most takes occur as the lure splashes down, not on the retrieve. In the summer of 2013 a neighbour of mine caught and ate over 15 catfish around 20lb - 25lb without affecting our catch rate, from a stretch of river no more than 100 metres long.
In England I would expect that there will be breeding populations in at least the Severn, Thames, Gt. Ouse and Trent. If I were to fish for one in those rivers and did not want to spend all night bivvied up, I would fish dead baits in match lengths immediately after the matchmen had gone home. The catfish will have switched onto large numbers of distressed and confused fish being released at regular times and I am sure will concentrate in those areas. Regular baiting with large numbers of sardines or sprats will also attract catfish if they are present.
So, love them or hate them, catish are coming to a water near to you.
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