Catfish Angler Forum at USCA banner

Catfish as big as a VW Beetle!

26K views 69 replies 48 participants last post by  truckgrandpa 
#1 ·
Ten years ago, I worked for the Iowa DNR. An engineer told me that his buddy was a diver for the Corps of Engineers and that he had seen "catfish as big as VW Beetles" around the footings of the locks.

Five or six years ago, a construction coworker of mine told me that a local private gravel pit had "catfish as big as VW Beetles". His buddies evidently did some skin diving in there.

Ten minutes ago, I read a post on the Ohio forum about divers finding "catfish as big as VW Beetles" in Ohio.

All right, whats going on here...who else has heard stories of "catfish as big as VW Beetles" ?!? Anyone seen one? :wink:
 
#54 ·
When I wad I kid this guy that was a friend of my dad's sunk his boat in the river. He hired a large boat kinda like a salvage boat and he hired 2 divers to go down and hook up to it. The 2 divers came back up without hooking up to it because they saw what they said was a giant fish. You can believe it or not but my dad's friend told the guys they weren't getting paid and they said they were fine with that, they just weren't going back down.
 
#55 ·
It is a story old men (like me) told young boys years ago in this area. With Ky. Dam being the biggest and most well known dam close to where I grew up it was usually the location in the story. Divers inspecting the dam encountering catfish so big they scared the divers to the surface to never dive the waters again. Having fished Ky. Dam decades after hearing the stories and seeing the amount of anglers fishing if there were VW sized fish living there I would think some of the smaller 200 lbs. ones would have ended up in the bottom of a boat but still the state record is far below that. I would also think sooner or later one of those VW sized fish would die of old age if nothing else and float to the top, there is a lot of boat traffic on the river below that dam for something that big floating around to go unnoticed. "Hey son, one of these days Grandpaw will take you Ky Dam fishing, they have catfish there as big as a little car."
 
#56 ·
I get what your saying. But to me it's stories like these that keep the magic of fishing alive. I used to hunt years ago in high school and for a few years after but was never really into hunting. Now fishing is a different story. Just like I'm sure a lot of people on here I had a pole in the water if I had a spare minute. I'm always excited to think about what MONSTER lurks just below the surface of the water. Whether these monster fish stories are true or not I want to be there to put some delicious morsel in front of it and see what happens.
 
#57 ·
This sure has a catchy title. I guess that is why it keeps popping up.

First suggestion would be to put on a good pair of high top rubber boots.

If you really want to know the truth about these VW sized catfish, go out in the woods and ask Sasquatch. They feed them at night.

tight lines
 
#59 ·
Well,,you see?all these people telling you about these big cats and such,and you won’t listen,Not even to people with personal experience and real reason to be where they have seen them.People are people,and they won’t listen to nobody until they see it it themselves,Bigfoot,Vwcatfish,or even a Mothman,and when you do see the unbelievable,you become the tall tale teller.An army of people are telling you about these things and you still don’t listen!Im not gonna tell you anything.
 
#70 · (Edited)
The Clampets were from the Cookson Hills ("...up the road a piece from Bug Tussel...")
Contrary to popular belief, that is in Eastern Oklahoma.
Speaker of the House, Carl Albert was also from Bug Tussel.

If you look it up on a map, BT is on the East side of Lake Eufaula, not far from the town of Eufaula, OK.

Edit: I just looked it up on Google Earth. Bug Tussle is actually closer to Mc Allester, OK.
About a mile East of US 69.

And, thinking about it, I think the Bodine family (from the series),(Jethro, Pearl and Jethrine) were the characters from the town.

In the movie, with Jim Varney as Jed, they were from the Ozarks, in SW Missouri/NW Arkansas.
 
#65 ·
This is just a speculation but, I was in the Army with a man from S.E. Ky, we shared a lot of the same interest as far as hunting, fishing and dirt biking. We were stationed in Ky and I went home with him on a three day pass once, his folks were rural even more so than mine but some of the most welcoming people I have met. During supper my buddy asked about a local girl he had been sweet on before joining the Army, his mom said she thinks she is a bit better than everyone round here since she went off to college, comes home strutting like a "possum trots". First time I ever heard the expression but if you ever seen one trot you know there is a lot of wiggle there. When they named the town maybe they were thinking of a gal they knew back somewhere else????
 
#66 ·
Around here the story goes

" So & so lake hired divers to go down & check the ( damn, spillway, city water inlet ect ) when they came out of the water they said they were never going back down there again because they saw fish big enough to eat a grown man "

Years ago I was in law enforcement and had the privilege of speaking with many contract divers that our city hired yearly & some State rescue divers ect.I always asked if they'd ever seen any giant fish and of course they all laughed and said they never saw any monster fish, most agreed catfish in the 40 - 60 pound range were as big as they'd ever seen & usually much smaller.

I wish it was true, I just want one as big as a Honda motorcycle cause I ain't picky
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top