So, recently learned that Maryland Delaware and a hand full of other states are facing the problem of invasive blue and flathead catfish. Now from some videos I've watched and the little bit of reading I've done the blue are thick and heavy in many places and it he flats are pretty decent size. No what's confusing me is apparently the fisherman up there have no clue what to do..... They are getting over run with some of the best eating fish out there....and they don't know what to do ...... And apparently no one fishes or harvests them purposely ! I don't get it I was actually talking to a commercial guy from LA and he's been considering really hard how he could possibly get up there and start being them back down here their so thick !
I mean heck down here peoel would kill to have those kinda of population to "control" lol

Maybe southerners just think those things are good to eat cause they dont have any pickerel.

You took the words out of my mouth but I wasn’t gonna say anything. I was thinking walleyes though.
There’s so many channel catfish in parts of the Missouri River it’s crazy and it seems like the old times that used to harvest them are a dying breed.

I was raised to believe that one would only eat catfish if in a SHTF situation and even then if you couldn't find a skunk to kill and eat. My father inlaw from South Dakota taught me to fillet a catfish the proper way. Now I would rather eat catfish than most other fish I have tried other than fresh halibut.

Walleye is the American name for yellow pickerel.

Boco, have you ever eaten flathead?

Yeah... pickerel - right up there with bonefish and carp

i will take perch or blue gills , over any fish, but I like all fish

Belly steak from a flat head is the BEST MEAT you will ever eat. BAR NONE . PURE white meat no bones, no grissel, no mud veins. BAD info on catfish is the small one are better ! BULL the big ones you cut the red/dark meat out of and nothing compares to it. I eat wall eye but the walleye is like carp compared to the belly meat from a flathead.
It smells like popcorn popping when you cook it is criscoe

We have walleye here in KS. They are delicious. I wish we had a lot of them. Boco, when you fillet a catfish cut out all the red and yellow meat. Fry up some pieces of walleye and pieces of catfish in small enough pieces you can't tell the difference by sight then try to tell a difference when you eat it. A flathead is a predator. They dont eat rotten stuff. Big blues rarely do. The belly meat and the meat behind the eyes on the head of a flat head is as good as any fish out there. It doesn't taste like tuna or salmon but to me its just as good.

Depends on what rivers the catfish come out of most guys wont eat them here because of the health advisories on them.

I LOVE catching big catfish, but for eating walleye, pike, crappies, perch, and cold water trout all rank higher. Yeah, catfish are good, but not as good as any of those.

I wish we had good catfishing here. Best I can do is a handful of channels and if I’m lucky once in a while one pushes ten pounds

I think your taste buds are scarred from the hot crisco!

Those no good Flat heads are in our rivers now.

You guys are confusing channel cats with blues and flatheads. Three completely different species.

No Danny, the Flat heads are here now. I heard they were stocked.

https://www.cbsnews.com/pittsburgh/news/pennsylvania-record-flathead-catfish/

I think the main reason they are upset is they eat all the native fish. I sat at a dock a few years ago watching a stocking of both lake trout and walleye fry. The flatheads thought the dinner bell had rung.

I love catching big flatheads on the Ohio just as much as walleye and salmon in the great lakes.

I agree,

Soon the Flathead is all we'll have like down south.

I don't know what type of cats I had all the time in FLA, but man, a dish of catfish and hushpuppies just hits the spot with me.

A good fish fry some seasoning along with some fries ketchup and a cold drink don't think I'd buy much grocery if I lived in a place with invasive catfish