On a recent overcast morning, Dale Sides dropped his lines 25 feet to the bottom of the murky Ohio River. Just then, a green boat motored past. A few hundred yards from where Sides was anchored, the boater, a commercial fisherman, began pulling up submerged hoops big enough for a human to swim through. If not for the nets attached.
Sides was not happy.
“I watch him pull five, six, seven nets right through this area right here, and he’s pulling fish out,” Sides said. “He’s fishing it 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
The commercial angler in the green boat is Sides’ opponent in a contentious debate that has pitted sport and commercial fishermen against each other in at least four states. The battle has spawned heated exchanges at prime fishing holes, in public game commission meetings and on online forums. Sides said it’s reached a point where he’s heard of fishermen vandalizing the commercial anglers’ nets and gear.
The unlikely source of all this animosity? Whiskered behemoths that will never win a beauty contest: Blue and flathead catfish, which can live close to 20 years and grow to more than 100 pounds.
Gambling for river monsters
Over the past few years, these monster catfish have been in high demand at hundreds of commercial fishing operations throughout the Midwest known as pay lakes.
At these lakes, trophy wild catfish pulled from rivers by commercial anglers are stocked in ponds for anglers who pay a small fee to fish. But the fishing itself isn’t the only draw for pay-lake anglers. At many pay lakes, including at at least two in Central Indiana, anglers gamble on their fishing skills by putting money into daily and seasonal trophy pots.
Catch the right-sized lunker catfish at the right time, and an angler can go home with several hundred dollars in his or her pocket.
Commercial angling groups and pay-lake owners argue big-river catfish populations are doing fine and pay lakes are nothing more than a little harmless — and legal — fun, even if winning money is a motivator for their clients.
Continue reading this article at this LINK…..
—–
Join ODU Magazine on Facebook here at this LINK…..
Join ODU Magazine on our Twitter fishing site here at this LINK…..
Join ODU Magazine on our Twitter hunting site here at this LINK…..
.