I was just wondering if you hook in to a trophy blue but you have no lip grips near by no net and your by yourself Can you grab the fish on the lower lip or would it clampdown and possibly break bones in your hands I was,just wondering in case I ever hook into one
4 Times. 4, mind you, I've taken workers to the ER with a Blue Cat bite. One was admitted and stayed for three days. Now that is over a couple of decades, but still, bitten badly enough to have to go to the emergency room and one of them aan extended hospital stay.
It seems once one of those big males has a nest of eggs within a day or two of hatching, they'll protect them with their very life. Generally we're pretty good about gathering the egg masses from the nesting containers in a timely manner. Sometimes a container gets loose and lost then found a few days later, or the fish dig a hole and a worker finds it and tries to get the eggs out. Maybe a storm upsets the schedule, but robbing giant blue cats of their eggs risks a serious bite if the eggs are about to hatch.
I've had brooders up to nearly 150 pounds. Big fish, lots of eggs, lots of eggs, lots of fry and fingerlings.
One guy, from "down South," bitten on the stomach so badly it left a big bite mark around his belly button. I saw him get bit, the fish came out of its can and hit him so hard in the belly he threw his hands up and said the first thing in English he could think of, "Godzilla, Godzilla, Godzilla!" Off to the ER.
Another was trying to outsmart the fish by using his foot to check in the cans for eggs, big dude, size 13 tennies for wading shoes. The fish ripped off his shoe and took his entire foot into its mouth and skinned the hide off his foot in several places, to the ER we went.
The worst was my intern biologist. He found a big hole in the bank and was sure it had a bonanza of blue cat eggs in it. So I watched as one worker grabbed his ankles and shoved him up into the hole, about 18 inches underwater. He started kicking his feet and the one guy pulled him out of the hole, big egg mass in his right arm like a football and big blue cat still holding onto his left hand. The fish let go and we went back to the hatchery. My intern insisting he was fine and didn't need to go to the ER. The big dummy.
Next morning as he was about to leave in the delivery truck, he started talking about tigers in the driveway and needing to shoo off the pesky teradactyls...we got his wife and she took him to the ER where he was admitted with a serious infection.
Now you can work with these animals and you can grab one by the lower jaw and hold it, sort of. But you do have to be very careful. If you got the fish in your arms or even by the jaw, and if its narrow enough to grab aholt of, using your strong hand, grab the blue cat by the caudal peduncle (narrow area just in front of the tail) and squeeze hard as you can. This actually causes the fish to become "tranquil," until you let go. The you get a burst of energy and best be out of the way.
Blue cat is my favorite fish of all. If you've caught or eaten any of the hybrids now being produced its likely you have consumed DNA I was a part of developing, the "D&B" Strain of blue catfish is among the best for making hybrids. The farm is long gone, the ponds plowed back to pastures, but the fish strain developed there is among the most used in the industry.
