Are Indiana’s river monsters under danger?
Dale Sides holds a catfish that is 50-pound caught from the Ohio River, this year. Photo supplied by Dale Sides (Picture: Kelly Wilkinson/The Star) purchase Photo
VEVAY, Ind. — On an overcast that is recent, Dale Sides dropped their lines 25 foot towards the base associated with the murky Ohio River. Simply then, a green ship motored past.
A hundred or so yards from where Sides had been anchored, the boater, a commercial fisherman, started pulling up submerged hoops big sufficient for a person to swim through. Or even for the nets connected.
Sides wasn’t pleased.
“we view him pull five, six, seven nets all the way through this area below, and then he’s pulling seafood out,” Sides said. “He’s fishing it twenty four hours a seven days per week. time”
The angler that is commercial the green watercraft is Sides’ opponent in a contentious debate which includes pitted sport and commercial fishermen against one another in at the least four states. The battle has spawned heated exchanges at prime fishing holes, in public places game payment conferences and on online discussion boards. Sides stated it really is reached a place where he is heard about fishermen vandalizing the anglers that are commercial nets and gear.
The source that is unlikely of this animosity? Whiskered behemoths that may win a beauty never competition: Blue and flathead catfish, which could live near to twenty years and develop to a lot more than 100 pounds.
Gambling for river monsters
These monster catfish have been in high demand at hundreds of commercial fishing operations throughout the Midwest known as pay lakes over the past few years.
At these lakes, trophy wild catfish pulled from streams by commercial fishermen are stocked in ponds for fishermen whom spend a tiny charge to seafood. Continue reading “Fishermen battle over monster catfish. Gambling for river monsters”