Page 27 - Mar/Apr 2022 Outdoor Okahoma Magazine

Some COOL FACTS about
the Channel Catfish:

• they are common in streams, ponds and lakes across Oklahoma.
• ODWC fish hatcheries at medicine Park, Byron, Durant and Holdenville raise
them for stocking into waters statewide. ®
• ODWC stocks about a half-million channel catfish statewide every year.
• they have a forked tail and the anal fin is curved across its bottom.
• the state record was caught in September 2005 from taft Lake. It weighed 35 pounds 15 ounces and was 39 inches long.
• they are omnivorous, feeding on a wide variety of organic matter, dead and alive. Some of the more common foods are
fish, mussels, snails, insects and crayfish.

• Often thought of as “bottom feeders,” they actually feed at any level.
rOBErt L. CurtIS/CC-BYnCSA4
• An angler’s daily limit for channel and blue catfish is 15 in any combination.

DuAnE rAVEr

Color a Critter: Channel Catfish

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