Full of eggs?

Is this normal?

I am not sure if that is normal Mud.

I clean my share of catfish but usually dont open the stomach. My thought is channels spawn in the late spring. It would not shock me to see eggs in a bass right now but to my knowledge they spawn at cooler temps than channel cats.

So yeah... not sure Uncle. I am sure one of these fine gentleman who know more about this than us will answer the mystery.

Hmmm... Interesting. I'm sure there are a lot of different reasons that a single channel cat would be holding eggs anytime of year. If you cleaned 10 of them and 8 had eggs it would be a different question. It maybe that this fish didn't spawn out for some reason and the eggs will be absorbed back into it's body. Although these eggs look like they are yet to fully develop. So perhaps this is a fish that will spawn early. Some say that water only needs to be 66 degrees for channel cats to spawn (https://adventure.howstuffworks.com...reshwater-tips/catfish/catfish-spawn.htm) so in 90 days it maybe time for the channels to start. ???

Speaking of weird stuff you find in a channel cat...

I was cleaning 4 fish yesterday for the grease. Three blues and one channel. The channel was about 8 pounds. He had a bid lumpy belly. When I opened him up his stomach was full of a partially digested "thing" It was hard to tell what it was. Upon closer inspection, I noticed feathers on it. It was either a small (about 6" long) duckling or cormorant. Now I have heard of big blues eating stuff like that, but an 8 pound channel cat? that was one hungry fish!

My vote is for the Cormarant lol... Those are some fish getting machines there. I have watched them at distance with binoculars and they are very aggressive eater of the fish as well. I am not a fan of those birds at all. I have seen some young BlackBass that had some scarring on them that I figured happened by one of them.

Some cultures use trained Cormarants to do their fishing for them. I would never willingly get that close to one of them to train one lol... I think they make much better bait myself, but that is just me.

CT,

Your just getting all indexed wrong on how big a 8 pound channel cat really is and what a fish that size would chase down and eat... You have gotten so use to your normal size cat that could eat a deer lol...

Wait so catfish Tim catches catfish that can eat a deer?! How do I get in on that!?

Forget cats with eggs, I want a cat with a forkie in its belly.

I'm a bit perplexed myself. I can see crappie and sand bass having developing eggs right now but catfish? I don't know. Stranger even is the stage of development that these are in. True head scratcher!

Tim, that's fascinating about the bird. All I want to know is, where do we get baby birds for bait and exactly how would you rig that?

Skeet,

I have had many conversations with the Game warden about those very dang birds and that would be just like using Rainbow Trout for bait, I hate those birds, they are quite the fish getters and they are very protected unfortunately. But I know that anything live makes for great bait lol, especially those smaller offerings lol. The Cormarants, well them as bait live or otherwise is the best thing I have ever heard of for those ...

So all I am saying here is if I was to fling a nice shad out and a Comarant was to just jump on it and manage somehow to get the hook caught in it, and somehow before I was able to get it reeled to the boat and released, a fish of any species was to snatch it up; well darn I would just NOT hate that lol... Just say'n

Female and male fish are generally distinguishable always.
Males have milt sacs, females have egg sacks/ovaries.
As they get closer to breeding these organs grow in size, the eggs get larger, those are undeveloped and not uncommon.

Mud what you have there is an underdeveloped sack/organ.

Learn something new each day.