I was just talking cats with a fella at Everts.
He caught a tagged flat about a month ago.
The kitty was tagged in 1998…in Hutchinson, MN on the N Fork of the Crow River and at the time weighed 17 lbs. They didn’t weigh it when it was caught on Pool 4, but the best guess was 25 lbs. It didn’t gain much in lenght but about 3 inches in girth.
Hutchinson is 60 miles West of Mpls on Hwy 7…I’m going to double check but it appears to be 200 miles by water. 
That really seems like a lot of miles in cooling to cold water. that really is one haulin’ 
CAT.
He got past Steve and all the Pool 2 boys, past all the Pool 3 Catters, and into Pool 4.
So much for laying in Wintering Holes all Winter, some Cats are just NoMads….
Brian, just may have to do a little more research….
Pretty cool.
Jack..
Jack, I think you missed the “tagged in 1998” piece. I’m guessing it wintered along the way. 
Interesting. Makes you wonder about genetic make up, are some cats destined to be allowed to grow so big? In the span of close to 10 years, I would have expected more growth.
Goes to show how important CPR can be to make sure that gene stock in the big fish is allowed to continue.
Interesting story – this should generate some discussion.
Are you sure it was a flathead this guy caught? Could he have caught a large channel cat and just been mistaken about the type of cat he had? It doesn’t match the current information on the flathead catfish range in Minnesota.
I kind of doubt a flathead was caught and tagged on the Crow River. I grew up on the Crow River and have fished it all my life. I have never heard of a flathead catfish ever being caught in the Crow River. It has an excellent population of channel catfish but I kind of doubt the presence of flatheads.
I suppose it could happen but this would really make this story pretty unique. From what I understand there are not any known flatheads above the Coon Rapids Dam. The upstream limit is kind of considered to be St Anthony Falls although we know flats have been caught between the two dams at St Anthony Falls. At best the upstream limit of the flathead range is considered to be Coon Rapids Dam.
Brian, you are right about that, I read month ago, and spaced the “98” part.
almost makes me want to delete my post, I laughed about it.
Jack..
Quote:
The kitty was tagged in 1998…in Hutchinson, MN on the N Fork of the Crow River
I maybe wrong but isn’t that the middle fork. Parents live North of Litchfield and I am sure that, that is the North Fork.
I have a feeling there was a miscommunication. The guys/gals from Hutch tagged a bunch of flatties, but it was not IN Hutch.
Two of them were caught last year, in fact there is suspicion that it might have been the same fish. Same numbers but transposed, could have been a misread.
Anyways here’s the info on Kevin’s fish:
It was tagged in June of 1999 between Franklin and Morton at river mile 217. It weighed 37.5 pounds and measured a little over 44″. Looks like it gained about 12.5 lbs and 3″ in 7 years. (Traveled close to 100 miles where it was caught) Hopefully this fish will continue to survive and maybe show up in the record books again sometime!
Mmm… Tasty! Gotta lick ’em eh? Cool vid! Nice catch
You know Dtro & C15…I’m thinking you are right. I’m betting it was the Hutchinson OFFICE that tagged the fish in the MN river. I could have miss understood this fella too.
I’m sure I’ll see him again and recheck that.
Still, even from the confuance, that’s a haul.
Hey Darren – Thanks for the info and the video. 
Your post clarifies the information that Brian posted. At least we know he was always in the established flathead catfish range here in Minnesota. The fish was initially in the Minnesota River and has migrated a significant distance down the Minnesota and Mississippi Rivers to finally be caught again near Red Wing. This validates all of our current studies of flathead movement on the Minnesota River and the Mississippi River.
I took this information from the Dec 2003 PHD dissertation by Jason Vokoun.
“In the mid-1990s biologists began to evaluate a population of flathead catfish in the Minnesota River. Here, near the northern extent of the species’ range, flathead catfish were found to migrate from summer areas to specific overwintering pools and then return to the summer areas the following year (Stauffer et al. 1996), with individuals making regular, predictable migrations up to 105 km.”
This fish is a traveling man. 105 km is about 65 miles. So over a number of years this fish has gone well beyond the 65 miles so he has probably wintered and summered in a number of different locations. If this fish was initially tagged in 1998 he has had plenty of time to move all the way down to Pool 4 on the Mississippi River. I wonder how he (or she) got past the dams at Hastings and Red Wing? They are amazing fish – I guess that is why hunting them is so much fun.
Getting through the locks/dams shouldn’t be too much of a problem at least going down stream.
Roller dams raise up and fish can swim or are pushed through. It’s possible during high water that they would go over the top too..but not likly. Another thought would be to “lock” through.
Larry, I had an email discussion with Jason Vokoun a few years ago. We were talking about the “wall” effect on flats…meaning why, in certain areas flats grow to x size but very seldom larger.
Citing a bass study (some where) size was influenced by three things. 1)genitics 2)forage base and 3)growing season. It’s a common belief that if a person could trace back all state record fish, that we would find a longer than normal growing season in the first few years of life. It kind of gave them a jump start on becoming larger he explained.
Brian, another interesting point in regards to the size of the fish being able to attain. It makes sense if it can get a little extra umph in the early years.
In correlation to us humans. I heard on the news that if a child is overwieght at the age of 3 they will be likely to be that way for the rest of thier lives.
Moral of the story. Obesity knows no boundries when it comes to species. 
Too bad there isn’t a way that we could insure that all little cats get there fill and then some, to make sure that they get big and FAT when they are ready to bite our lines.
I don’t recall there being any noting of sizes between males and females. Anyone aware if flatheads are dimorphic?
I had to Google the word, because I couldn’t remember it. 
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