kind of weird, wonder the cause
- Thread starter WTM
- Start date
They are everywhere! A few weeks I probably saw a couple hundred dead. They were everywhere you went. Have seen some live ones that looked like the skin was rotting off them.
Dang, that's wild.
I believe the number 300 is low. I think they're mostly concentrated at the dam because they are floating downstream. I live way upsream from the dam and they're floating from above where I am up here.
Omega
Well-Known Member
Chem spill from the train wreck???
a chem that only kills spotted cats?
Smo
Well-Known Member
Maybe it's Cat scratch fever…..
Omega
Well-Known Member
Bottom feeders.
You talking about the one near the Ohio River? If so, doesn't the Tennessee discharge into the Ohio River just above the Mississippi River. Also I would think that there would have been a trail of dead fish along the whole river system and not just our local area.
mike jolly from twra says it may be a natural die off.
This is MY theory and it's just that a GUESS but I feel like either two things happened.
A. That something was sprayed or dumped into or near the river and it was heavier than water and flowed until getting to a deep hole on the riverbed. A big school of catfish were in that hole of continue to use that hole where the chemical is and continued to die.
B. Someone had a big pond die off or they were getting rid of those catfish out of their pond or ponds and thought they could toss them in the river to live but didn't work out so well.
A. That something was sprayed or dumped into or near the river and it was heavier than water and flowed until getting to a deep hole on the riverbed. A big school of catfish were in that hole of continue to use that hole where the chemical is and continued to die.
B. Someone had a big pond die off or they were getting rid of those catfish out of their pond or ponds and thought they could toss them in the river to live but didn't work out so well.
I wondered that but why all of them about the same size
Omega
Well-Known Member
You're right, but maybe a different incident somewhere? They didn't seem to care what happened in Ohio, why would they care about a smaller incident.
Hopefully they are taking numerous samples to see if they have a unusual amount of something that's not NORMAL and comparing it to live catfish of the same species and size.
Oh trust me I know what you mean. Some of these old foundries and plants along the river could have dumped crap 40 years ago in barrels and it's not leaking out of one or more somewhere.
yeah im thinking your option B above. other than asian carp, bow fishermen dumping and the triton owners tournament disaster, ive never seen a die off all at once like that on the river.
particularly only one flavor of cats.
i was also thinking that this time of year they are usually starting shallow to spawn. maybe spawning stress? but then again we caught some blue cats in 6ft of water last weekend so why only channel cats?
sounds eerily familiar. someone said something about seeing their skins falling off:
Yea I'm definitely thinking someone tossed in their "catfish pond" stuff. It was about 5-6 years ago that we had a drought and one of my uncle's ponds was just for channel cats. Well with zero rain or wind to work the windmill aerator all the channel cats died. It was a nasty and smelly job and probably a couple hundred dead fish
Buzzard Breath
Well-Known Member
I find this perfectly viable. Someone recently dumped 500 pounds of cooked pasta in the woods in NJ. Why couldn't someone have done the same, but with catfish.
