Catfish which is which?

[ocean]

What do channel cats look like and mudacts? I have caught some dark color cats at lincoln and some light gold colred ones at redmond.Which is which? Here is a pic of the one my son caught.
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[mikecromaine]

the one with yellow on them are mudcats the dark ones can be too what size was the dark ones if small mudcats too
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[ocean]

The dark ones i caught at utah lake they were about 18-22 inches in length.The ones my son caught at redmond were yellow.They were about 12 inches or so.
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[poorfisherman]

mud cats are alot darker and there head looks to big for the rest of them, kinda like a big tadpole


oh yea the telltale is mudcats have a square tail and channels have a deeply forked tail.
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[mikecromaine]

here are a couple of pics for you
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[fuzzyfisher]

hey ocean is that the same cat he caught when we were there fishing? if so then it was a channel..i have see some of the channel cat in utah lake have a very dark color to them..but the best way to tell which is which is by the tall mud cat's have rounded talls and channels have a deep forked tall..and i have found that mud cats have bigger heads for there size then channels do..

dude on fish?
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[cat_man]

Hey ocean, another way to tell if it's a channel is there are sometimes dark spots on Channels. As they get older and huge, sometimes the spots fade or disappear, but all small channels will have some black spots on them. Plus, channels will have a deeply forked tail.

Mudcats tail is not very forked, if at all. It is either square, or with a barely noticeable fork. Colors of both mudcats and channels will vary from dark brown or black to gray or whitish, to yellowish green. Usually, though, bullheads will be greenish yellow underneath (sometimes quite bright early in the year around spawning time). In Utah Lake most channels I've seen are a dark grayish color.
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[fishluvr]

I want to add a question to your post. Does one type of catfish taste better or worse than another??
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[Coldfooter]

The answer to your question is,, it merely depends on who's eating them.. As an example,, I like Spotted Channels more than Blue Channels. And, I dont keep anything over 24 inches because the large they get, the greesier they get. I perfer to keep em about 18 inches long..

I probably fish for Channel Cats more than anything else during the warm weather. Infact, I'll be going Cat Fishing this evening after my hunt for Walleye and I will hopely have a few (to show) for my effort.. I cant wait to tangle with a big kittie in my "Mack Kittie"/float tube!
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[ocean]

Yup that was the same one.
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