As a youngster I was always interested in this species with its small size and venom. Have never ran across one. Anyone run across them? Rare? Occasionally? Ever been finned with its venom? Hurt much?

Used to find them frequently when I lived in the Ozarks. Generally, while catching crawdads.

They hurt a lot. Good catfish bait.

See several over the years catch crawdads or seining for minnows. Always left them alone or turned em loose if caught.

We used to dipnet 'em when we were kids . . . called 'em willowcats. Best walleye bait on a jig, but their sting was akin to that of a bumblebee, or so it felt back when.

Madtoms are locally very abundant in some rivers and streams. In parts of the Mad River, if you put a seine around a loose rock and flip it, you'll catch a madtom about half the time. If you fish at night on the bottom, with a tiny hook and a bit of worm or meat, you will catch lots of madtoms. They like fast, well aerated water. I used to keep stonecat and brindled madtoms in aquariums. They hide almost all the time during the day, which makes them not very fun to keep.

I never got stung by one.

Jonah's Aquarium, near me, often has madtoms and other native species of fish for sale.

http://jonahsaquarium.com/

I used to travel all over to catch different species of fish. At one point I had 56 different species. I never fished or netted the Big Darby Creek back then, because I didn't live near it and never heard of it. I live near it now. It has 84 different species of fish, the most of any body of water in Ohio. I fished it some last fall. I have a 350 gallon aquarium I'm not using and want to set it up for native fish from the Big Darby Creek. I'll have to be careful on my identification because there's a lot of endangered species in it.

Keith

Ive found them in the bellies of a few walleye