Was going through some old pictures and found a picture of this very dark channel catfish I caught years ago on the Potomac River and thought I would share it for fun.
Here is another weird colored channel catfish caught by my dad while we were fishing for flatheads on the Schuylkill river in philly. At first we thought it was a flathead because of the color before really looking at it.
This is the coolest coloration I found of the channels I caught, this one was caught on the Potomac. This ones color is exactly like a Flathead it is really weird. +another random picture from the same day of another weird channel.
Was going through some old pictures and found a picture of this very dark channel catfish I caught years ago on the Potomac River and thought I would share it for fun. View attachment 1358261
they all look like reg. "wild" channels to me....the ones were used to seeing in the hobby/trade are usually hybrids of channel/blue cats making them a bit lighter and as always water conditions/sunlight play a big role in coloration of wild fish. If they were truely melanistic theyd b jet black... or have patches of jet black on them not shades of brown. The 1st pic if definetly a channel cat... the 2nd 2 pics im not positive as theres another species on the east coast in ur area white bullhead that can be hard to tell apart that size range.