How Old Is A 50 Lb Blue Catfish
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How old is a 50 lb blue catfish. I was fishing the mighty James River with two great friends Neil Renouf of Old Domion Outdoors and Gary Harmon of Radford VA. Some individuals will reach 50 pounds in 18 years while others might take 25 years to reach that size. Feb 04 2006 Its really hard to say for sure it depends on so many things.
Blue catfish become sexually mature when they reach 24 inches long. If it takes two hands to lift it over your head then its Five to Ten years old. Blue catfish now support exceptional trophy fisheries in the Chesapeake Bay region particularly in the James and Potomac rivers where catfish over 50 lb are regularly caught by anglers.
If you cant get its tail off the ground then its Ten to Twenty years old. Jakob Hals and Luke Hentges head down to the Missouri River in Missouri. Zachery Lovelady 14 years old from Soddy-Daisy Tennessee.
The only Texas state fishing record that bests that is a 279-pound Alligator Gar caught on the Rio Grande in. Blue catfish are also long-lived fish sometimes exceeding 30 years of age. Blue catfish commonly attain weights of 20 to 40 pounds and may reach weights well in excess of 100 pounds.
But I would guess if he is in a river or stream in the wild not a farm pond I would say at least 20 years. One study in several Oklahoma reservoirs demonstrated that less than 1 of blue catfish would ever reach 30. He caught it on 8-pound.
The blue catfish has a rounded anal fin with 24-29 rays. Oklahoma is 10 on the list with a 118 lb brute caught in Lake Texoma the same reservoir that produced biggest blue catfish from Texas 1215 lbs. Its thought the largest catfish can live 35 to 40 plus years.