Cat tale, with a happy ending

[Twitter]

I just found the story and pics in the catfish forum.......

This was a pretty interesting story from The Sunday Wichita Eagle Newspaper a couple of weeks ago. It was in a housing development around 119th st. South and Maple. Anyhow a resident in the area saw a ball bouncing around kind of strange like in the developments pond and when he went to investigate, it was a flathead catfish who had obviously tried to swallow a child's
basketball which became stuck in its mouth. The fish was totally exhausted from trying to dive but unable to because the ball would always bring him back up to the surface. The resident tried numerous times to get the ball out but was unsuccessful. He finally had his wife cut the ball In order to deflate the ball and release the catfish.

[This message has been edited by Twitter (edited 06-30-2004).]

[bart simpson]

Well, now I smell a rat. According to the thread in the catfish forum this happened in So. Louisiana. Is Wichata in south La?

http://fishingminnesota.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/000437.html

[MURPHFISHER]

Many of these stories that circulate via e-mail get changed so much along the way, it is nearly impossible to know the true story behind them. The pictures do speak for themselves. As for me, I think someone jammed that ball into it's mouth on purpose.

[SCUMFROG]

Same here, How could that fish get that ball so far into it's mouth. Being the ball is only going to sit so deep in the water and if the cat made even the slightest wake from the side the ball would move. And if it came up from under it there is really no way it would get stuck.

[This message has been edited by SCUMFROG (edited 06-30-2004).]

[HighLife100]

I read on another web site that it was from Wichita too but with these kind of emails who knows. I don't see how it is physically possible for that cat to get the ball in it's mouth unless it was pinned down.