Do Catfish Have Slime?

TMF89 · June 29, 2008

I gotta admit it's been years since I handled a nice channel, and I still haven't found a flathead yet, but do they have slime? I know they're tougher than almost anything else that swims, but I don't think they have slime, which usually means if you rub it off a fish, that fish's in trouble. So I would imagine they just have really thick skin?

Larry FlatCaster · June 29, 2008

Slime..... Understatement Mate!

Yea they have it... Do your best to try to preserve it.

I use a rubber mat in my boat... Sometimes makes things a little more difficult cause the fish slides all over the place.

Check your line out after you catch one.... Sometimes you will see it covered in what looks like goopy snot... (sorry best description I could compare to)

This is what I use in the boat to help out.. Cat slime gets stinky in large quantities, with a little warm weather.

UncleKes · June 29, 2008

TMF89: The answer is YES! All fish have slime. Some have more than others but ALL fish have slime. Fish slime contains a natural antibiotic that keeps a fish healthy and prevents infections that might kill it!

Fish live in a very dirty, very germ infested environment. If a fish gets injured or another fish tries to take a bite out of it and the skin is broken infection could set in. We have all seen fish that have washed up on the beach that look healthy they just have a bite on their side but not one large enough to have killed it outright.

In many cases the fish succumbed to an infection. In other cases similar bites heal and the fish survives and lives to bite your hook another day. This is because once the organism senses the skin has been broken it begins to produce more slime and the slime coats the wound and the natural antibiotics found in fish slime keeps germs from multiplying and producing infections that would kill the fish.

Human scientists and medical researchers have been able to synthesize the antibiotics in fish slime and new antibiotics have come into being as a result.

In fact it was the catfish that originally put scientists on to these slime/antibiotics. Arab Fisherman off the coast of Yeman have caught a breed of ocean catfish for years. As you know fishing can be dangerous and cuts and bruises and such routinely happen to fisherman. When ever this would happen the Arabs would rub the cut with catfish slime. This was a very old ( I mean ancient) home remedy that scientists found out about and started researching and they found out about these new antibiotics..

World wide there are over 180 different species of catfish. Including two that live in salt water and 3 that live one mile down in an underground aquafir under San Antonio, Texas. According to the In-Fisherman book "Channel Catfish Fever."

Tight Lines;

Uncle Kes

slipperybob · June 30, 2008

About the only fish that felt without slime is the Sturgeon.

crazyice · June 30, 2008