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A Wilkes County fisherman caught a record channel catfish -- with his granddaughter's hot pink Barbie doll rod and reel. David Hayes landed the fish, which weighed 21 pounds, one ounce, on Aug. 5 in a private pond in the northwestern North Carolina county. He was fishing with his granddaughter Alyssa, 3, the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission said. The fish was 2 inches longer than Alyssa's rod and reel, which measured 2 and a half feet. Hayes and his granddaughter were using black crickets as bait and fishing for bluegill when nature called for Alyssa. "After catching two or three...

  Wife lands a whopper   What a whopper ... Gill Hudspeth and her catch   By STAFF REPORTER Published: Today     A NOVICE angler is celebrating a huge haul - on her first fishing effort. Gill Hudspeth, 58, hooked a 72lb catfish the first time she fished with a rod and reel on holiday with her husband and two friends in France. Her huge haul blew her husband Maurice’s best ever catch of 42lbs straight out of the water. Mrs Hudspeth, from Wilford, Nottinghamshire, today said she had never taken up fishing, despite the fact her husband...

As Price of Grain Rises, Catfish Farms Dry Up By DAVID STREITFELD LELAND, Miss. — Catfish farmers across the South, unable to cope with the soaring cost of corn and soybean feed, are draining their ponds. “It’s a dead business,” said John Dillard, who pioneered the commercial farming of catfish in the late 1960s. Last year Dillard & Company raised 11 million fish. Next year it will raise none. People can eat imported fish, Mr. Dillard said, just as they use imported oil. As for his 55 employees? “Those jobs are gone.” Corn and soybeans have nearly tripled in price...

A new state law is now in effect requiring all restaurants in Mississippi to clearly display the specific country of origin of the catfish they serve. While supermarkets have previously been required to display “Country of Origin Labeling” for catfish, restaurants have been under no such mandate until House Bill 728 went into effect Tuesday. According to a statement recently released by Roger Barlow, president of the Jackson-based Catfish Institute, “This is possibly the most significant piece of legislation the Mississippi Catfish Industry, or for that matter, the entire U.S. Farm-Raised Catfish industry has ever had. “Since Mississippi is the...

Darryl E. Owens | Sentinel Staff Writer February 28, 2008 Ray Combs thought he'd witnessed the wildest fishing action that the world had to offer. But that was before the Orlando videographer hopped a military cargo plane to Baghdad. There, as Black Hawk helicopters flew overhead, he watched soldiers cast lines into a man-made lake near where Saddam Hussein reputedly kept his harem. "I have been on boats shooting video as an 18-foot hammerhead ate a 200-pound tarpon mere feet away from me," said Combs, 32. "But . . . it doesn't compare to the surreal feeling of watching soldiers...

BANGKOK, Thailand - Six proposed dams on the Mekong River could displace up to 75,000 villagers and harm hundreds of species like the endangered giant catfish and Irrawaddy dolphin, conservationists warned Tuesday. Premrudee Daoroung, director of the Bangkok-based environmental group TERRA, said 13-year-old plans to build four dams in Laos and one each in Thailand and Cambodia have been revived as part of efforts — mostly by China, Thailand and Vietnam — to find new energy sources for their growing economies. "The natural flow of the river will all be completely changed," Premrudee said. "Of course, it will affect all...

Schumer: “[L]et Me Be Clear. The Violence In Anbar Has Gone Down Despite The Surge, Not Because Of The Surge. The Inability Of American Soldiers To Protect These Tribes From Al-Qaida Said To These Tribes: We Have To Fight Al-Qaida Ourselves.” (Sen. Charles Schumer, Congressional Record, 9/5/07, p. S 11090)

Catfish imports from China are causing economic and health concerns in the South. Tests on some frozen catfish fillets from China have found two antibiotics banned by the Food and Drug Administration. Alabama has banned catfish from China, after it determined that the fillets contained the antibiotics. Mississippi has halted store sales of the imported fish; Louisiana and Arkansas plan to test all catfish imported from China. Aside from any threat to health, the imports have also been a threat to the economy of the Mississippi Delta, which provides more than three-fourths of the catfish eaten in the United States....

Agriculture Commissioner bans Chinese catfish in Alabama 4/25/2007, 5:34 p.m. CDT By KATE BRUMBACK The Associated Press MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks announced a ban on the sale of catfish from China on Wednesday after antibiotics prohibited in the United States were found in Chinese catfish. Sparks said 20 samples of catfish from China were collected for testing by the department of agriculture over the last few weeks. Of those samples, 14 tested positive for the antibiotic fluoroquinolones, which the Food and Drug Administration banned from use in food-producing animals in 1997. "We are sending notice...

The vast freshwater ecosystem of the Amazon River is home to abundant animal life, and many of its species thrive by virtue of their ferocity. If one were to ask the locals which of the river's indigenous species is the most treacherous, a few might describe the roaming packs of carnivorous piranhas, or the massive anaconda snakes; but based on the general sentiment of the region, the most frequently uttered response would be "candirú." The candirú is a tiny catfish which dwells in the depths of the Amazon River. These fish do not hunt in packs like the piranha, nor...

PRIESTS, PROSTITUTES, psychologists, cops, jazz musicians, poker players. Every trade has its jargon and "insider lingo." ... ..."Embrace the suck" isn't merely a wisecrack; it's an encyclopedic experience rendered as an epigram, gritty shorthand for "Face it, soldier. I've been there. War ain't easy. Now deal with the difficulty and let's get on with the mission."... ...Dynamic truth: Basically means "this is the plan when my supervisor gave it to me, but change is already in the works."

An English school caretaker nearly drowned as he set a record for hooking the largest catfish in Europe, a 226 pound monster christened "Jaws" in Spain. It took two friends to keep Carl Smith of Owestry from being dragged into the River Ebro in Spain after fighting the giant fish for 35 minutes, The Times of London reports. "The force of the tug practically sent me crashing to the ground," Smith said. "It's mouth, with rows of sharp teeth, made it look like a man-eating shark." European wels catfish are reputed to eat anything that can fit into their huge...

How Kipper the catfish burnt the house down By Simon de Bruxelles Kipper proved an all-too-apt name for the catfish thought to have started the fire by splashing water from his aquarium onto sockets below. The creature perished in the flames (Stanley Rushall/BNPS) A CATFISH called Kipper is being blamed for starting a fire that destroyed his owner’s home. Kipper might have been an 8in (20cm) slippery customer, but was an unlikely suspect as a potential arsonist. Nonetheless Sharron Killahena, the fish’s owner, is sure that he was the culprit. Dripping water led to a short circuit that caused a...

Thirty years ago, the United States finally ended its long and costly war with Vietnam. That war pitted two fundamentally different views of the rights of men versus the power of the state against each other. One side believed men owned themselves and are born with religious, social and political freedom. The other believed the state owns men and was obliged to claim not only the product of a man's labor, but also to dictate his thoughts, his ambition and his beliefs. The necessity and wisdom of the Vietnam War will continue to be debated for decades (I happen to...

SIX MILE — A 52-pound flathead catfish caught in Hartwell Lake didn’t survive long as a family pet. The mammoth creature hauled in by Clarence Reid died just days after the fish, dubbed "Big Fin," was placed inside a 2,100-gallon decorative yard pond with a waterfall and nearby gazebo. The fish received notoriety earlier this month in media services from as far away as India for landing in the Creek Bend Drive pond and not the family’s skillet. Mr. Reid said he could not bring himself to fry up what became a pet. A family funeral was held for the...

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia (AP) - Four endangered giant catfish were released Wednesday into the Mekong River after seven years of captivity in hopes of boosting the population of the species, which has fallen sharply in the last two decades. Calling the rare fish "an omen of luck and prosperity," their owner, Ing Vannath, said he wanted to repay that good fortune "by returning them to their natural habitat to allow them the chance to swim freely," according to a statement from the World Wildlife Fund. The four adult fish weighed between 99 pounds and 110 pounds each and measured about...

ALTON, Ill. - It sounds like the sort of tale Mark Twain might have cooked up: A man fishing in the Mississippi River hauls in a blue catfish roughly the size of a sixth-grader. But this is no fish story. Early Sunday, Tim Pruitt caught a 124-pound blue catfish. To get a sense of just how big that is, the state record holder was a mere 85 pounds and the world record holder tipped the scales at 121 pounds, 8 ounces. Now, Pruitt, whose fish has already been weighed in the presence of a conservation police officer and measured by...

3 Children Reel In Giant Catfish   POSTED: 4:55 pm EDT April 5, 2005 UPDATED: 5:16 pm EDT April 5, 2005   Three children in Houston, Texas, reeled in a giant blue catfish (pictured, left) while fishing in a bayou, according to Local 6 News.         The Spring Brach Middle School students said it took about 30 minutes to bring the 65-pound fish to shore at the bayou located at Shasta and Memorial.       The giant fish may be the largest ever caught in the area.Local 6 News showed video of the boys unsuccessfully attempting...

Anyhow a resident in the area saw a ball bouncing around kind of strange like in the developments pond and when he went to investigate, it was a flathead catfish who had obviously tried to swallow a child's basketball which became stuck in its mouth. The fish was totally exhausted from trying to dive but unable to because the ball would always bring him back up to the surface. The resident tried numerous times to get the ball out but was unsuccessful. He finally had his wife cut the ball in order to deflate the ball and release the catfish....

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted on Sat, Sep. 04, 2004 Surveying the noodlers Associated Press Mark Morgan, a professor who specializes in the human dimensions of managing natural resources, sent surveys to 183 people known to Noodlers Anonymous, an organization for handfishing enthusiasts. Morgan, who teaches at the University of Missouri-Columbia, received 100 responses, a rate of response he thought was "pretty good" since handfishing, also called noodling, is illegal in Missouri. More than 70 percent said they only used bare hands - no gloves, grappling hooks, duct tape or scuba gear. Well over 90 percent said they live in small towns or...

<p>LANCASTER -- One-hundred pound flathead catfish could eventually take over the Susquehanna River and disrupt its ecosystem, according to the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission.</p> <p>Last week, commission officials confirmed that the species recently entered the Susquehanna River. And officials are worried the predatory fish, which can reach more than 100 pounds, could cause problems for other species.</p>

LAMBERTVILLE, N.J. - An alien species of catfish has been caught in the Delaware Raritan Canal, prompting fears among environmental officials that the voracious predator could devastate native catfish, sunfish and some sturgeon populations the way it has in southeastern states. "The threat of the flathead is significant," Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bradley M. Campbell said in a statement Wednesday. "Anglers should report any catches or sightings of this fish to the Department." In the southeast, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has listed the flathead as its highest priority among invasive animal species, the DEP reported. Flatheads, which...

A giant catfish that ate a dog and terrorised a German lake for years has washed up dead, but the legend of "Kuno the Killer" lives on. A gardener discovered the carcass of a 1.5-metre long catfish weighing 35 kilograms this week, a spokesman for the western city of Moenchengladbach said yesterday. Kuno became a local celebrity in 2001 when he sprang from the waters of the Volksgarten park lake to swallow a Dachshund puppy whole. He evaded repeated attempts to capture him. "He was our Loch Ness monster," said Uwe Heil, member of "Kuno's Friends", a local rock band...

For Tran Vu Long, who lives atop his floating catfish trap on the Mekong River near the border with Cambodia, the recent biannual harvest day was not the joyous payday it usually is. Mr. Long, a 35-year-old Vietnamese catfish farmer, sold his flapping fish — 40 tons' worth, all painstakingly weighed and carried in bamboo buckets onto the trading company's launch — at a loss of some $2,000, a small fortune here. Mr. Long, who stood sullenly to the side as his hired hands scooped out seemingly endless gaggles of fish from underneath the space that doubles as his living...

Mice can predict big earthquakes: Japanese researchers 2 hours, 42 minutes ago Add Science - AFP to My Yahoo! TOKYO (AFP) - Japanese researchers said they have proved mice act strangely after being exposed to electromagnetism similar to that often monitored ahead of a big earthquake (news - web sites). In their experiments, researchers exposed mice to low levels of electromagnetism which people cannot feel, said Takeshi Yagi, professor at Osaka University in western Japan. "The mice then became unstable and ran around inside the cage, scratched their faces and stuck their heads into sawdust in the cage," Yagi said...

<p>HANOI, Vietnam (AP) - Vietnamese catfish exporters on Saturday hailed a decision by the U.S. Commerce Department to lower import tariffs on some Vietnamese frozen fillets, calling it a positive step in resolving a trade dispute between the two nations.</p>

<p>WASHINGTON -- Vietnamese catfish isn't really catfish.</p> <p>So says Congress in a little-noticed provision of the recently enacted farm bill, which declares that Vietnamese catfish imported to the United States can't be labeled as such but must be called basa or tra.</p>