Back in the 70’s my younger brother caught a big catfish in the Grand River, west of Grand Rapids Michigan. I told him I would cook it if he cleaned it. It took a pair of large pruning hooks to cut the head off and it proceeded to keep walking along the pavement. When my brother finished and put the edible part of the fish in the sink he was as white as a sheet.
You’ve got to be careful with the smaller channel cats. They will `gig’ you with that spiny fin just below the head. It may be a story but I heard somewhere they have some sort of poison in the spine.
One got me in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger years ago and it got infected, so heads-up novice whiskered fishers: mind the spines.