Big Kitties

There are plenty of ways to fool a fat cat.
Some anglers like to go after them the conventional way using a stout rod, big line and heavy duty hook tipped with a  slab of diced shad or a live perch. Most will agree the fresher the bait, the better.
Passive crowds also catch plenty on trotlines, jugs, limb lines and bank poles, as do adrenaline junkies like Justin White of Kaufman and Drew Moore of Chandler.
White and Moore are hardcore noodlers. Both get a charge out of sticking their hands, arms, legs and feet into dark places where the sun doesn’t shine.
They routinely get their fix snatching big catfish from their spawning dens at Lake Tawakoni. The 38,000-acre reservoir near Greenville ranks among the top lakes in the south for catching whopper blue, flathead and channel catfish.
In June 2023, White and Moore tag-teamed what may be the biggest flathead catch ever noodled and documented on certified scales.
They found the 98.7 pound bruiser hiding inside an old concrete washout at the base of a bridge crossing in about 14 feet of water. Moore described the battle as something akin to getting locked in a dark closet with MMA fighter than you cannot see.
“A hell broke loose,” he said. “She met us at the edge of her spawning bed and went to work on us. She would ram us, suck our arms in up to the elbow, roll, shake loose and bite again. It was complete chaos. We took a total butt whipping for about 2 minutes. She tore up the arms on our wet suits. I had teeth in my arms like splinters.”
Michael Littlejohn and Noel Ibarra know all about Tawakoni’s famed trophy catfish fishery. Both are a full-time fishing guides who have steered their clients to a passel of rod and reel bruisers.
The biggest fish hauled aboard Littlejohn’s rig is the 87.50 lake record blue cat reeled in by Jody Jenkins in February 2014. The fish gobbled up a piece of fresh cut bait as Littlejohn made a drift across deep water.
Like Littlejohn, Ibarra has caught and released dozens of blues upwards of 40 pounds over the years. His biggest is an 80 pounder caught in February 2020 by Kansas angler Kenny Quiett.
In March 2019, Ibarra guided 13-year-old Brayden Rogers of Cisco to a 67 pounder. The fish ranked as the junior angler state record and lake record until 12-year-old Cade Childress of Pickton cracked it in March 2021 with another Tawakoni giant. Childress’ 72.4 pounder was caught while fishing with guide James Evans.
If it sounds like Tawakoni is pretty sweet spot to go hunting for heavyweight catfish, that’s because it is. The same could be said for a number of other Texas lakes.
The fat girls may show up in lakes of all sizes. As a rule, whopper cats are most abundant in large, riverine water bodies that afford them plenty of food and solitude for growing old and stacking on weight.
Blue cats and flathead cats are the two sub-species most prone to develop serious weight problems in these parts. Females can reach weights upwards of 100 pounds.
Channel cat don’t grow near as large as blues and flatheads. The state rod and reel record channel cat dating way back to 1965 is 36.50 pounds from the Perdenales River. An even bigger one (37.70 pounds) was caught on a jug line at lake Bob Sandlin last October, according to Texas Parks and Wildlife’s water body records.
Channels do exceptionally well in large river systems, but also can be found in quite a few reservoirs around the state. Big ones upwards of 10 pounds are most common in water bodies where blue catfish populations are not well established, according to Jake Norman, a TPWD fisheries biologist based in Tyler.
Norman ranks lakes Fork, Pat Mayse and Tyler among the top lakes in the state for catching numbers of channel cats in the 8-10 pound range.
“The size of the channel cat in those lakes might surprise you,” Norman said. “The common factor between them is they don’t have large numbers of blue cat. It’s kind of a strange dynamic.”
As heavyweight blues cats go, no one can deny Lake Texoma along the Texas/Oklahoma border the title belt for quantities of fish weighing upwards of 50 pounds.
Perhaps the most famous of all is the current state record rod and reel record blue catfish caught there in January 2004 by the late Cody Mullennix.
Mullennix’s fat cat also ranked as the International Game Fish Association world record for several years, but has since been broken. Nicknamed “Splash,” the big blue cat lived for two years in captivity as a big attraction at the Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center in Athens. The fish died in December 2005.
Toledo Bend Reservoir is another border lake known for its heavyweight blues and flatheads. The lake record rod and reel flathead from 1985 is listed at 71 pounds, but I’ve seen much bigger. In the early 1990s, I photographed a giant that caught on a jigging spoon and brought to shore by a couple of elderly men.
The 92 pounder was weighed on an uncertified scale at Bill’s Landing. Interestingly, one of the men was a heart patient who was recovering from quadruple bypass surgery at the time. The other had been declared legally blind.
Trotliner Tom Allcorn owns the T-Bend all-tackle lake record with an 84-pound blue caught in 2007. The lake record blue by rod and reel is 67 pounds.
Lake Palestine is another lake that can’t be left out for catching giants on hook and line. The lake record rod and reel blue cat is 48.20 pounds; flathead, 98.50 pounds.
The list of Texas lakes known for producing big bites goes on and on.
Sam Rayburn is worth a mention, as are lakes Palestine, Richland Chambers, Ray Hubbard, Lewisville, Livingston, Cedar Creek, Worth, Eagle Mountain, Ray Roberts, Limestone, Lewisville and Grapevine.
Take your pick and hang on tight.
Matt Williams is a freelance writer based in Nacogdoches. He can be reached by email, mattwillwrite4u@yahoo.com .

Texas Lake Records by Rod and Reel

Sam Rayburn
* Blue Cat: 53.00 pounds
* Flathead: 74.09 pounds

Tawakoni
* Blue Cat: 87.50 pounds
* Flathead: 88 pounds

Palestine
* Blue Cat: 48.20 pounds
* Flathead: 98.50 pounds

Richland Chambers
* Blue Cat: 65.80 pounds
* Flathead: 80.25 pounds

Ray Hubbard
* Blue Cat: 62.23 pounds
* Flathead: 65 pounds
* Channel Cat: 26.06 pounds

Lewisville
* Blue Cat: 63.12 pounds
* Flathead: 98 pounds
* Channel Cat: 22.68 pounds

Livingston
* Blue Cat: 71 pounds
* Flathead: 82 pounds

Cedar Creek
* Blue Cat: 65.01 pounds
* Flathead: 64.75 pounds

Lake Worth
* Blue Cat: 75.50 pounds
* Flathead: 53.65 pounds

Eagle Mountain
* Blue Cat: 53.07 pounds
* Flathead: 73 pounds

Ray Roberts
* Blue Cat: 59.99 pounds
* Flathead: 62.60 pounds

Grapevine
* Blue Cat: 60.80 pounds
* Flathead: 73.50 pounds

Texoma
* Blue Cat: 121.50 pounds
* Flathead: 45.65 pounds

Limestone
* Blue Cat: 61.13 pounds
* Flathead: 27.61 pounds (109 pounds, unrestricted)

Aging a Cat
Old age isn’t always indicative of a weight problem

Texas Parks and Wildlife fisheries/research biologist David Buckmeier has aged plenty of flathead and blue catfish over the years.
He says growth rates are highly variable among catfish, and that old age isn’t always indicative of a serious weight problem.
Buckmeier says he has aged five-pound flatheads that were 3-30 years old and 100-pound blue cats as young as 13. The biologist has found that the biggest fish are typically not the oldest, and that they usually grow faster than most in the population.
Buckmeier determined the 121.50 pound state record blue catfish from Texoma was 23-25 years old when it died at the TFFC. The fish nicknamed “Splash” spent the last two years of its life in captivity at the facility, where it starred in daily dive shows and ate extremely well.
Buckmeier says fish are aged by counting annual growth rings in small ear-bones called otoliths. Fish rely on otoliths for balance and hearing.
The biologist obtained two otoliths from “Splash” — one from ear — for evaluation. The bones were about the size of pencil erasers. The fish was aged at 23 years plus because there were 23 annual rings on its otoliths along with some additional growth along the outer edges.

— Matt Williams