How Much Do You Know About Flathead Catfish Game/Quiz?

[catfishkid]

great idea. I'll go with D

[Surreal Deal]

C

[Shack]

The answer to Question number 1 is B.

Many different studies report a couple years difference (plus or minus), but they all range around the age of 20 and the oldest record flathead was age 20. Although not record, there is speculation that the flathead catfish has the potential to live up to 30 years old.

Reference: 1996 Mapfish georeferenced mapping database, Dennis O. and Steven Hugg

If anyone has information that says other wise, please forward it to me via e-mail .

5/13/2009

Question #2

Biologists report that one possible feeding strategy of the flathead is:

A) To stalk their prey in packs much like wolves do.

Feed aggressively on any and all objects much like the tiger shark has been found to do.

C) To lie motionless with its mouth open, until a fish looking for a spot in which to hide swims in.

D) To only feed on occasion, storing extra food under log jams and rock shelves.

[Here-Kitty-Kitty]

tough one between B and C, but I will go with B

[rushing]

B again

[Surreal Deal]

C again

[Scott K]

"B"

[EBass]

This is fun - Rolling with B

[DTro]

B

[ec30_06]

Didn't Scott present some data at the bpcl meeting that suggested that the catfish live a lot longer?

[mplspug]

I am going out of the box as B sounds too easy. I am going with A because I have gotten into discussions about this before.

[JeffB]

I'll go with B but C seems very tempting too.

[Larry FlatCaster]

Didn't Scott present some data at the bpcl meeting that suggested that the catfish live a lot longer?

He passed on the info that it was almost impossible to tell the age of the old and very old catfish due to the spine starting to hollow out, making it impossible to count the rings in the spines.

I was gonna make mention to something like that, but don't want to rain on the game.

[Shack]

He passed on the info that it was almost impossible to tell the age of the old and very old catfish due to the spine starting to hollow out, making it impossible to count the rings in the spines.

Very well maybe the reason the oldest recorded flat is only 20 years old. Maybe after this it does like Scott said at the meeting? I did not hear him talk about this for reasons .

Quote:

I was gonna make mention to something like that, but don't want to rain on the game.

LFC or anyone else, do not feel like questioning what I report or anything posted in this thread is raining on a anyone’s game I encourage this . Like I asked, if anyone has any info, report or study that says any different than what is found on the web many times over, please feel free to bring it up in here or e-mail it to me.

I started researching flatheads in my spare time last winter and have been reading and reading and reading for a project I have going. Believe me, if I could find more proof they live to even 40-50 years old, it would help me out a ton. I feel age is the reason why sturgeon have the reg's place on them as they do. Flatheads report average lifespan (what I can find) is only a quarter of this at best. From what I have found, a 20 year old flathead is equivalent to a 100 year old human.

Can and have they lived much longer than 20, I am sure they have but the question asked was a fill in the blank of the oldest recorded flathead.

[wildcatcreek]

C for # 2

[Alex Zuhlsdorf]

B for #2

[KMR85]

B

[Scott M]

Originally Posted By: ec30_06

Didn't Scott present some data at the bpcl meeting that suggested that the catfish live a lot longer?

He passed on the info that it was almost impossible to tell the age of the old and very old catfish due to the spine starting to hollow out, making it impossible to count the rings in the spines.

I was gonna make mention to something like that, but don't want to rain on the game.

Ed, I probably told you there were older fish, but that was a SWAG (scientific wild arsed guess). Many times the literature will put that guess back in the ballpark. You never know until you put a spine section under the 'scope.

Fish Base and the literature shows the oldest fish at 20 years, but quite honestly there just isn't that much research interest in aging catfish.

There was a paper done on freshwater drum, another underutilized species, that blew away previous ideas of the oldest specimen of that species when a 80-some year old fish was aged from Red Lake.

Just a hunch, but if someone took the time to study them, I think there would be some older fish found. That being said, as LFC recalled, there are some big time limitations to correctly aging fish when they reach that size. The lumen will start to move down the spine, creating a hollow spot in the middle of the spine.

Flathead catfish research is much like the fish itself, underutilized. A couple doctoral dissertations in Missouri, a couple tracking programs in Minnesota and Iowa, and you don't get much else. There's a whole database of MN DNR tagging information that is begging to be teased apart. Some of those recaptures could be used for age verification purposes...the possibilities in those data are endless, despite some of their shortcomings (i.e. catfish age, catfish home range, catfish movement, tagging survivorship, population estimates, etc.)

[Gordie]

C on q2

[Slowhand]

..."one possible strategy" leaves alot open, and the way they bite some nights I wouldnt bet against them storing food

[Shack]

Scott thank you for the post. When you spoke at the BPCL meeting, it did take me by surprise When Papa said in the BPCL post that you where going to talk to us about a survey, I totally miss read this and did not know it was going to be about the ongoing tracking study. I should have taken notes, because it was an extremely good presentation. This a great sign that more will be known about MN flatheads down the road.

I made my last post very quick, because I should have left work by then and been on the road . Scott touched on some things I wanted to say and I agree with him 100%. There just is not that much indepth research on flatheads available easily to the general public and most of what you find is from southern states. There is a ton of info (websites) on the net, but in a round about way all the information brought forward circles back to about a hand full of the same studies done over the years and aging flatheads was not the vocal point of the study. A person could get more information on studies done in years past, but this would entail many phone calls, writing letters, waiting to get a response and driving to where these studies have been done and reading the info on site. I love flatheads and want to learn as much as I can, but I am not into it this far yet

When I mentioned the "plus or minus" factor for aging in my revealing of the answer today, I had one study in mind:

Jeffrey C. Jolley, Peter C. Sakaris, and Elise R. Irwin

Alabama Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Research Unit

USGS

These guys are taking the aging of flatheads very seriously. They are using the otolith and then comparing the data with what they find from the spine:

So here’s what an otolith and spine looks like after they are processed. These are images of an otolith and spine from the same flathead catfish from the Coosa River. Using the otolith we estimated it at 25 years old (this was actually the oldest fish we aged). Notice the golden-brown color of the otolith – that’s from the burning I mentioned earlier. We were only able to distinguish 11-13 annuli using the spine. Much of the center part is unreadable. This just illustrates the utility of using otoliths, especially on older fish and may be an extreme example.

Here are the life history parameters that FAST needs in order to run simulation models. The parameters that are going to vary depending on the aging technique are the top three (show animation).

Some of these parameters are our best guess from what I could find in the literature. Age at sexual maturation may be more related to size than age but this value seemed to be approximately at the midpoint of the different estimates that I was able to find.

The fecundity information seemed to be a little scarce in the literature – I think much of it may be hidden in the gray literature. It is based on information from about 20 fish that I was able to find in various sources – just keep that in mind – its just an estimate. Percentage of fish that were females was 43% in the Coosa. I always used 100% of fish spawning annually as the default although I don’t think we have a good handle on that, either. And finally the minimum length limits were set in accordance to the range of values I showed you earlier that various state agencies use. The lower limit of 10” is probably more likely representative of no minimum size or a non-regulation.

So for Coosa River – spine-aged fish – we have a maximum age of 18 and mortality of 17%.

So here you can see that using otoliths the population looks a little slower growing and longer-lived. We went from 18 to 25 years as the oldest fish and conditional natural mortality drops down to 13%.

This shows an age of 25 when using otolith models, but only 18 when the spine was used. I also have read a report which said they claim to have recorded a 34 year old flathead, but did not provide the means of how this was done.

I could go further, but do not want to bore everyone. In the end and putting all SWAG aside , I used this particular finding for the for the quiz.

[Shack]

The answer to question #2 is C

Biologists report that one possible feeding strategy of the flathead is to lie motionless with its mouth open, until a fish looking for a spot in which to hide swims in.

Source: Tom Qwak, Ph.D, Unit Leader, NC Cooperative Fish and Wildlife Reseach Unit

I brought this one up (as it is mentioned in a couple other write-ups) because (IMO) could possibly apply to some post spawn to late-summer feeding characteristic of larger flats. I want to give it a try and look harder at bottom content, experiment with longer snells and more frequent bait placement movements during post spawn and latter summer this year. Might be a bust, but worth a try again IMO .

5/14/2009

Question #3

The flathead catfish is a __________ species, and generally no more than two or three adults inhabit a single unit of cover, such as a brushpile.

A) Crazy

Precarious

C) Solitary

D) Extroverted

E) Conscientious

[Surreal Deal]

You gave us the answer - C.

[rushing]

C

[EBass]

A) no wait C) sounds more logical, but hey I got the last one wrong to.