Channel cats - difference in male and female ID?

[Selmer]

Had an interesting event today - my 8 year old picked up a 23.5" channel cat, then minutes later a 24" cat that was pretty nasty looking - I thought it was a flathead at first, but this is a part of the Minnesota with no flatheads. It had a much wider, flatter head than the first cat and was almost black in color and had a much bigger mouth. After a little research, it must have been a male channel? The female was not spawned out yet. I wasn't aware that there was that much obvious difference in body construction between male and female channel cats, or is this a little odd?

[DTro]

The males will always get very dark (almost black) around this time of the year during spawning. Their heads will also swell up and get meaty looking. Pretty easy to tell the difference in late June/ealy July time period.

There is a way to positively sex them, but but I won't get into those details. I think there is a post floating around somewhere here...

[Selmer]

Thank DTro - I figured this was the case. The head almost looked like I could have carved "cheeks" off the top and sides. Must be similar to what black crappies and bluegills do while on the spawn, eh?

[Rick G]

Not sure is color means all that much as about 80-90% of the ones I get on my home stretch of river are dark colored. I do get lighted colored fish from time to time, but they are mostly 12-18in fish. But I do agree that the males will get a wider head than the females this time of year, here is a good example

[EBass]

My buddy was talking about this on Sat. He caught a 27" channel on a crankbait (going for bass on da upper sippi) and the mouth was wide. And hour or so later I catch one a little smaller, but still 25"ish range and the mouth was much more narrow. He thought his was a male and mine was a female.