Worlds largest freshwater fish

holms

Feeder Fish
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Jul 23, 2008
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nowhere .
warmouth;2040077; said:
there have been stories in the Ozarks (Cape Area) in Missouri that their used to be 12 ft Flatheads in the Mississipi......but IVe never seen one over 4ft long!
definitely fake .
 

Bottomfeeder

Dovii
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Aug 4, 2008
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If you're looking to compare the largest individual fish of each specis, Meking Giant Catfish. There have been semi-credible reports of huge 20+ft White Sturgeon in a little-known lake in Alaska. I tried to find the wikipedia article but couldn't find it. It is in the "List Of Cryptids" article. I'll keep looking but if anyone else wants to look...I love cryptozoology but I don't wanna go up and down the page all day...
 

perchkeeper

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Jul 16, 2008
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Holland
There are a couple of things i was wondering about:
1) the wels cat has been found in the black, baltic and aral seas so is strictly not freshwater.
2) although i dont think the mekong cat has ever been sighted in seawater if it is anything like many other members of Pangasiidae it could be migratory.

You should keep an eye on the fact that other freshwaterfish also live in the baltic and aral sea. Though, there are some parts of these seas that are to salty for the freshwaterfish. A certain part of the Balticsea is known for it's monsterous pike that live there! The freshwater fish probably adapted to the brackish/salty water.
 

warmouth

Jack Dempsey
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Jul 19, 2008
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Zoodiver;2040509;2040509 said:
They live very well in the Gulf of Mexico. I've run into many of them while doing shark research down there. I know of several aquariums that display their alligator gar in the full strength saltwater tanks.
I have heard of them living near the Mississipi river delta and other river deltas leading into the gulf of Mexico but I was stationed farther south in Panama and outside the canal zone Ive never seen a gar while snorkeling in the ocean. Near the river deltas its brackish water, and there are areas where alligator gars could spawn but.....I do not believe they live in the ocean away from river deltas.....but then again I could be wrong.....and there could be man eating flatheads in the Mississippi river and in Table rock lake near the dam! ha ha hee hee ho ho aaah.
 

Moontanman

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warmouth;2065980; said:
I have heard of them living near the Mississipi river delta and other river deltas leading into the gulf of Mexico but I was stationed farther south in Panama and outside the canal zone Ive never seen a gar while snorkeling in the ocean. Near the river deltas its brackish water, and there are areas where alligator gars could spawn but.....I do not believe they live in the ocean away from river deltas.....but then again I could be wrong.....and there could be man eating flatheads in the Mississippi river and in Table rock lake near the dam! ha ha hee hee ho ho aaah.
Here in NC we have areas where Gar choose to live all the time in salt water, mostly around docks where fish are cleaned regularly. the are not Alligator Gar but they are gar that are normally found in freshwater. I've even seen them in the near shore ocean around fishing piers but most just inside the barrier islands in the sound. These are wild fish that move from freshwater to take advantage of feeding opportunities. Not sure if this had any bearing on the alligator Gar but these freshwater fish do indeed live freely in full salt water.
 

Zoodiver

As seen on TV
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warmouth;2065980; said:
I have heard of them living near the Mississipi river delta and other river deltas leading into the gulf of Mexico but I was stationed farther south in Panama and outside the canal zone Ive never seen a gar while snorkeling in the ocean. Near the river deltas its brackish water, and there are areas where alligator gars could spawn but.....I do not believe they live in the ocean away from river deltas.....but then again I could be wrong.....and there could be man eating flatheads in the Mississippi river and in Table rock lake near the dam! ha ha hee hee ho ho aaah.
Agreed you'll see them more frequently right at the river mouth. But I've found them out further and in full strength salt.
 

LobstersGoPeenchPeench

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Jul 23, 2008
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ok sorry i know u guys might think this story is a big bag of b.s. but when my mom was a kid(like 30 years ago) there was a boyscout that went missing one night. i live in cedar rapids iowa. anyways they had a bunch of diving teams looking for the body up and down the cedar river here in town and the divers refused to go down after they searched by the 5 in 1 (5 gate dam that is in the middle of the town in the river) because there were catfish the size of vw bug's. anyways but noone has ever pulled one up... see u think that a actual gaint, on the count that it survived so long, would not hit bait from experience. so just the fact that they havent been pulled up doesnt mean anything. any of u divers feel free to come and search the river but its pretty much impossible to search a whole river like the mekong for giants same with the mississippi river too. they could be hiding anywhere. also we have a roller dam that if anything gets caught in the current its stuck so noone has searched right near it and i wouldnt be surprised if there were massive fish that blow the records out of the water so dont come to conclusions about alligator gars and massive cats in the american river system and along with the mekong such as the elusive 1000 lb ray swimming around on the bottom. plus rays bury themselves in the sand so you would have to use like a small dog for bait if u were fishing for a massive ray.
just my 2 cents
 

Moontanman

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LobstersGoPeenchPeench;2072303; said:
ok sorry i know u guys might think this story is a big bag of b.s. but when my mom was a kid(like 30 years ago) there was a boyscout that went missing one night. i live in cedar rapids iowa. anyways they had a bunch of diving teams looking for the body up and down the cedar river here in town and the divers refused to go down after they searched by the 5 in 1 (5 gate dam that is in the middle of the town in the river) because there were catfish the size of vw bug's. anyways but noone has ever pulled one up... see u think that a actual gaint, on the count that it survived so long, would not hit bait from experience. so just the fact that they havent been pulled up doesnt mean anything. any of u divers feel free to come and search the river but its pretty much impossible to search a whole river like the mekong for giants same with the mississippi river too. they could be hiding anywhere. also we have a roller dam that if anything gets caught in the current its stuck so noone has searched right near it and i wouldnt be surprised if there were massive fish that blow the records out of the water so dont come to conclusions about alligator gars and massive cats in the american river system and along with the mekong such as the elusive 1000 lb ray swimming around on the bottom. plus rays bury themselves in the sand so you would have to use like a small dog for bait if u were fishing for a massive ray.
just my 2 cents
I am a scuba diver, I know lots of other scuba divers, I know divers that have swam with very aggressive sharks, some even with great whites (I have my doubts about that), groupers big enough to gulp you down, none of them are afraid of catfish. I also know several divers who actually work on dams, they go down and repair underwater parts often in very deep water. They say they have dived around many of the dams which are supposed to have the giant catfish. According to divers who have actually gone there these claims of giant catfish are indeed urban legends with no basis in fact. they have never seen catfish any bigger than the world record size cats and usually much smaller. Don't think that divers are afraid of fish, they are not, very few fish will attack a diver to start with and the most dangerous are sharks that can take a bite out of you. Even sharks usually leave divers alone if they behave themselves. Those big catfish are just tall tales told by divers who want to see the yokels eyes get big. Yes divers tell tell tales, divers can be BS artists as much as anyopne else, they like to see the looks of WOW on the onlookers when they come up. No giant car sized catfish in dam impoundments or the tale waters.
 
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