I know I saw UT here sometime ago how to burp a catfish. I had one a few weeks ago imkept bc it would not swim down. I take it burping would solve this?

That's right, when you bring them up fron the deep water, their air bag gets real full, you can tell if they need burped just because their belly is so tight, I have a plastic tube that is about 20" long by 3/8" hole, some use pvc pipe, just roll them on their stomache and insert the tube into their gullet push it in until you hear the air come out, you may have to push it almost all the way in on a big fish, and you may have to mash on the fish to help get the air out, not hard, and when the stomache is not tight any more they can be put back in the water, sometimes it is kind of quiet and sometimes it is pretty loud, but don't stand in front of it because sometimes it is a lot of water.

Hope this helps,

And Good Luck to Ya!!!

Thanks as always Larry

We figured out at the Twok tournament that a piece of 3/8" polyvinyl tubing, like clear water line, works really good for that.

Yep what they said^^^^^

Running anything down their mouths should be done as a last resort and is seldom necessary.

Most fish will release the air in the handling process but if they don't take them and lay them across your lap with the back of the bulge of their gut laying over one knee. If they don't release the air from this alone then applying some slight pressure to the top of the fish will typically get them to release the air.

Running something down their mouth and pushing on the air bladders should be a last resort as you risk damaging the gills and the air bladder.

Plus bringing fish up slow and easy from deep water will help prevent this in the first place.