"The catfish is a plenty good enough fish for anyone," said Mark Twain. Although there are four popular species of catfish in the U.S. – blue, flathead, channel, and bullhead - it is the channel catfish – Ictalurus punctatus – that is most numerous. Originally distributed east of the Rockies along the Mississippi drainage, the channel catfish is now found in every state except Alaska.

Channel catfish are the only species with spots and a deeply forked tail. The outside edge of the channel cat's anal fin is curved as opposed to the straight anal fin of the sometimes mistaken blue cat. The coloring of channels leans towards black in clear waters and yellow in muddy waters. The belly is normally whitish. Like other catfish, the channel catfish has no scales, soft fins, and three sharp, stiff, spines – one each at the front of the dorsal and pectoral fins.

As head of U.S. C.A.T.S., 70-year old Virgil Agee may consult with more expert catfishers than anyone. "Channel catfish are extremely easy to catch," explains Virgil. "They
will hit just about anything – live or prepared. My first choice is a prepared stinkbait." Virgil uses 6-pound line with a slip sinker followed by an 18-inch leader
and a 2/0 circle hook. If he doesn't get a bite in five minutes he changes locations. Virgil still remembers his first channel cat: "It was a three pounder on the James River, south of Springfield [MO], and I was about seven or eight years old. I was using worms - fishing for anything that would bite."

Although highly adaptable, channel catfish prefer clearer waters where the bottom is sandy or gravelly. Most adults move and feed in darkness. The rest of the time they spend in the protection of logs, rocks, and other cover or deep holes. It was the combination of deep holes beneath newly constructed TVA dams and the introduction of a German automobile that spawned a widespread urban fish legend: divers seeing catfish as big as Volkswagens beneath dams. And "below the dam" is a frequent caption for photos
of giant catfish. Vlad Evanoff 's remarkable 1978 book, 500 Fishing Experts and How They Catch Fish, has a photo of a 41-pound channel cat with the caption, "caught below
Pickwick Dam." The favorite bait of the angler, Jake Milliron, is "whole small hickory shad or guts from a big one."

The record channel catfish was caught in 1964 in South Carolina and weighed only 58 pounds – "only" in comparison to blues and flatheads that reach over 100 pounds. Only three states have produced 50-pound channels, and 20-pounders are trophies everywhere. But the facts don't hamper continual hyperbolics of storytellers. Catherine Wright's 2001 Steamboat Annie and the Thousand-Pound Catfish was a bestselling picture book for kids. And in Wisconsin a legendary giant catfish was actually a transformed Menominee Indian who broke a taboo.

Big channel catfish can produce as many as 100,000 eggs. When water temperatures reach 75 degrees, males make nests by fanning out debris in cavities in logs, under banks, beneath rocks, and even in barrels or tires. The female arrives and produces a gelatinous mass of eggs and then departs. The male stays and defends the eggs from predators and constantly fans the eggs to remove debris and keep oxygen flowing over them. In about a week the fry are born with a yolk sac that nourishes them for a few days. Then they swim to the surface looking for food and gulping air to help regulate their buoyancy.

Master catfisher and biologist Fred Murray is associate director of Maymont – a public historic estate in Virginia that includes aquaria containing Virginia fish. "Slow, deep
pools near cover," and "chicken liver" are Murray's top two tips for catching channel catfish in rivers. "You want to drift your bait slowly. Channel cats are opportunistic feeders." Taste is the channel cat's primary search engine. Tastebuds cover their entire bodies, and are most numerous on their barbels and gill arches.

Their taste-smell abilities were confirmed by Missouri Department of Conservation biologist Kevin Sullivan during his 1990s research that included netting tens of thousands of
channel catfish. He found that leaving a baited hoop net untouched for 72 hours allowed for the bait's odor to attract a great number of catfish. "It was not uncommon to catch 400 adults in one three-net grouping." Kevin – now with the Department for nearly 30 years – also discovered a fishing tip: "One of the best places on any lake during spring spawning time is riprap." Whether it's the cavities in the rocks or the abundance of crustaceans, channel catfish congregate there.

Its diverse appetite and adaptability has resulted in a grassroots popularity that has led some states to designate the channel catfish as their state fish. Missouri Governor Mel Carnahan signed his state's channel catfish bill in 1997. In Iowa, The Ames Tribune quoted Senator Amanda Ragan, "The channel catfish was here when pioneers arrived to settle the state and is still found in all 99 counties."

American writers from Mark Twain to O. Henry to Jack London reference catfish in their stories, but it was Ben Lucien Berman's "Catfish Bend" series of southern stories (1952-1967) that is likely most responsible for the channel catfish becoming part of "Americana." Called "America's greatest living interpreter," Berman's most famous single title was Steamboat Round the Bend which was made into a movie starring Will Rogers.

In Berman's book, One River to Cross, catfish sprinkle the lives of many of his salt-of-the-earth characters. There is even one named Catfish Johnny, ". . . always in need of a shave . . . when he works, which is not so often . . . lazily in his drawling voice makes Solomon-like decisions, settling a dispute . . . as to the ownership of a choice cove on the river where the catfish bite the quickest." In the final chapter of One River to Cross, the boat finally reaches the ocean where there are unfamiliar fish. The conclusion about this new water: "It ain't a natural river. A river's a river with catfish in her."