Do Cat Fish Sting??

Mattgsxr

Active Member
I have asked a few people about cat fish and have got several different answers.

I know that the whiskers on cat fish do not sting you. The questions is someone said the 2 side fins and the top fin do. Does this mean you can not touch them at all?

Also how do you hold them. I have always been scared and cut the line if I cant get hook out with plyers. ???? I know I'm a scaredy cat.

The nest question is do people eat them and if so how would you clean them?
 
cats have spikes in the 2 front side fins and in the dorsal fin..they are good eating, i dont personaly eat them..they are skinned first then fillet..plenty of utube vids, most involes a nail to hold them down..
 
As deworm said. They have spines in their pectoral fins and dorsal fin.
They're kind of like the spines on the dorsal fin of a rock bass, but a lot bigger.

We grip them by the mouth. I find if I grab them through the mouth with my thumb and fingers in their gill plate, it works well.
They're a lot of fun to fish for.
I have no knowledge of eating them though
 

Attachments

  • 20150528_121755.jpg
    20150528_121755.jpg
    396.8 KB · Views: 51
  • 11'10 derby day-1.jpg
    11'10 derby day-1.jpg
    29.4 KB · Views: 51
I've caught dozens of catfish and never had an issue.
They don't "sting" you. They are like barbs. If they poke into you, it will hurt. But just touching the fin isn't going to do anything.
For the really small ones, I will grab them around the mid section and let my hand run up into the bottom of the barbs to hold onto.
Yes, if you were to try and press them down to flatten them they will go parallel to the fishes body.
Be careful with the first few you catch and take a look at what we're talking about. It's not too big a deal
 
They are great eating Cajun style. We tried one last year and it was excellent. Fillet them and take the skin off. There is also a layer of fat I cut off as well. I only want the nice white meat. I cut them into strips put them in the Cajun mix I got off youtube. But make sure you cook them outside. We used side burner on BBQ. It will stink your house out. Lol.
I got another one ready to cook up.
 
I lived up in Owen Sound for 10yrs. If I wanted Catfish I would head down to the Saugeen River in Southampton in which the river was full of them. Pick your method: Anchored, Drifting and one of my favorite methods for catching lots was trolling for them. All I ever used was a Mepps Spinner loaded with a glob of worms (no weight) then feed enough line out till you nicked bottom occasionally. When they hit you swear it was a Salmon. Reel pole jerkers and fighters. Once I was heading out one morning into the Lake for Salmon and every boat that that was Cat fishing was playing one. In summer if you went down to the Marina you would see several African-Americans up from Detroit with their Campers. They would fish all night with 10ft and longer Rods propped with with a bank rod holders with Bells on.

Another time I was Rigger fishing on the outside near Chantry Island for Salmon in deep water. The Rigger goes off and when I was playing it I knew it wasn't a King, turned out to be a Catfish which gave an exciting fight.

If your Roasting a Cat in the oven make sure it is sitting on a drip rack or it will be saturated with its own grease (not pleasant tasting).
 
Last edited:
The smaller/younger the cat the sharper they are. As they get older they round off and not near or at all as sharp as younger smaller fish. It's them little squirmy fish that will get you!
Cut the skin from one peck fin over the back just behind the head to the other fin then make a cut the the whole length down the center of back,go around both sides of the dorsal fin then right to the tail. Grab the skin on its back near its head with pliers and pull it to the tail. Should take the whole skin off on side then do same on other side. Then cut the fillets off like any other fish. Or fillet it and skin it like you would a walleye just be easy, It can be easy to cut skin where you don't want to.
Like the other fellow said,be sure to remove the fat! It's oily spot at the bottom and top of fillets..can't miss it. It's not a piece of the actual "meat" but comes off with fillet..still oily but not near as bad as if you don't remove it.
We Put a batch of skin on channel cat fillets in the smoker this year.. they wasn't bad at all. Was much better then the lake trout we did up. Personally I won't keep channel cat to eat unless it still has black spots down the sides. Much better cut of meat to eat,not as oily as the biggins. I have found they loose the spots the older & bigger they get. Clean & prepare bullhead catfish the same way.
 
The barbs or "stingers" of a catfish are along the front side of the pectoral fins, and dorsal fin. Like some others have said, the smaller the catfish, the more it seems to hurt if you get stung. I got stung enough when I was a kid to learn that when you grab them, if you're going to do it from the top, do so from behind the dorsal and pectoral fins or from the bottom again from behind the pectoral fins and they won't be able to getcha. (Unless it's so big that isn't possible in which case I just leave them on the ground, use my pliers to remove the hook, and if I can't I just let the fish keep it and cut the line.)

As for cleaning them, my uncle taught me when I was a kid to cut behind the gills, down the backbone, down the belly (just like you would with most other fish) but DO NOT take the fillet off at the tail until you've taken your pliers, grabbed the skin at the top corner of the fillet by the head, peel the skin off, (comes off pretty easily) THEN remove the fillet.

LOTS of different ways to cook them, but I've found that the bigger the catfish, the greasier it tends to be, so if I have a big one that I've kept, I tend to cut the fillet into much smaller pieces and I cook'em one or two at a time to alleviate that problem. Personally I've cooked it all kinds of different ways. I've used cajun spices, regular old shake n bake, beer batter, simple garlic butter, montreal steak spice, dill weed, mesquite rub. I've cooked them on the BBQ, oven, deep fryer, frying pan on top of the stove (pre-heated before I put the fish in it) I've also seasoned them and then done a "boil in a bag" kind of thing that turned out nicely as well.
 
Small ones I hold under the belly with thumb and middle finger just rear of the pectoral fins. Larger ones just grab them by the tail and support the belly. It's definitely the smaller ones you need to be careful with, the pectoral and dorsal spines can be very sharp! Tossed a small 3-4lber in the back of the Jon boat while straddling the seat a few years back and the pectoral spine went right through my shoe and then through my second to big toe! Bled like a stuffed pig for a couple hours and ended up at the hospital for a tetnis shot just to be safe.....

Josh
 
Well going to try this out. My 6 year old son always makes fun of me and tells me not to be a big baby.

Coming from the kid who has no problems holding kings and pike.

He keeps watching you tube videos and says he was going to try so I figure I would ask before this went bad quickly ???

Wish me luck ???
 
Just be careful of the bacteria if they do scratch you enough to create an open wound. Have had it before where the big guys flip during a picture and open my hand up. Bacteria from the fish whether it was from the mouth or on the fins themselves got in to the wound and caused flu like symptoms (fever, nausea and pains) for a couple of days. Was told by doctors that it was from the fish. Could have been coincidence with something else but it makes sense seeing that they are feeding on dead fish.

Just have care when handling them.
 
I dropped a catfish on a brand new pair of Irish Setters rubber boots once and the catfish barb went through the boot and a little into my foot. Boot leaked after that haha
 
Back
Top
AdBlock Detected

We get it, advertisements are annoying!

Advertising is what keeps Channel 6-8 on the air. To this end, please take a moment to disable your AdBlocker. If you would prefer an ad-free experience, but would still like to help support site operations, please consider making a donation.

I've Disabled AdBlock    No Thanks