04-10-2006, 08:03 PM
It is fact that the only thing I can catch lately while fishing in Utah is a severe case of the flu. So I thought I'd use all of my pent-up frustration to offer my opinion on a very messy issue floating around BFT.
So here goes, fellers and gals, enjoy!
[cool]Here's my take on the whole Utah Lake-blue cat misconception. (It's speculative, for certain, but it's the only logical--or illogical--conclusion I can come up with.)
Though I have never met Out4Trout personally, I truly believe his claim that his ugliest-of-all whisker fish did indeed come directly from the bowels of Utah Lake. (I mean we've got to take fellow BFTers at their word, or surely we're nothing more than truth-stretching savages!)
Upon sneering for the first time at the homely appearance of his fish and wondering if his brute could indeed be an elusive blue, I believe that Out4 wanted to compare Mr. Ugly with a true blue catfish from back east. Was it a channel, or was it blue? A flathead maybe? Certainly not a flathead. He had to make sure! Thus, Out4 came to the conclusion that he should load Mr. Ugly into his car, point his hood ornament in the opposite direction of the setting sun, and speed to a far away watery destination, wherein a blue type of feline fishy swims for a livin'.
So excited was he about his scientific fish-identifying endeavor that Out4 sprinted from the banks of UL, tossed Mr. Ugly into the back seat of his car, and spat gravel for yards as he sped off to begin his epic journey.
Little did Out4 realize in his haste, however, that Mr. Ugly had flopped out onto the road, just as he had slammed his door shut. Still attached to the stringer and dangling precariously from the door, Mr. Ugly bravely clenched with his "jaws of life" all the way to Mississippi, or wherever it was that Out4 eventually stopped, with blue and flathead cats on his brain.
Once Out4 opened his door, he looked down, and with heavy
ness, tears brimming in his eyes, he gawked at his road-weary companion. Bruised and beaten by countless potholes, his skin torn and scraped by hundreds of miles of asphalt, the best Mr. Ugly could do was raise his bloodied head and manage a dutiful wide 
to Out4. All Out4 could manage was a teary, "Hold on, little buddy," and he took Mr. Ugly and gently laid him upon the shiny brown vinyl, stretched over the padding of his back seat.
Undaunted by the grizzly sight, Out4 continued to the banks of his destination and fished for hours in the hot July sun. Meanwhile, Mr. Ugly began to sizzle on the vinyl, baking like a cracked egg on a Phoenix sidewalk at mid day. It wasn't long before Out4 realized he hadn't told his wife about his road trip, so he rushed to his car, hopped in the front seat, said, "Hmmn, something smells good," and sped back to Utah. During the long trip back, Mr. Ugly's bruises and abrasions began to turn his body an even darker shade of BLUE, even more so than he originally was.
Upon returning home and pulling in his driveway, Out4 reached to his back seat, took Mr. Ugly by the stringer and hefted him proudly into the air, for the entire world to see, as he walked triumphantly to his door. It was at this point that TubeDude's cousins, the ones that look like they have wing nuts for ears, saw Out4 with his prize and commented, in unison, "That feller musta just caught a blue out of Utard Lake! Ain’t he the lucky one!"
So excited were TubeDude's cousins that they spread the word to every person with whom they crossed paths that day, and every day for months, that Utah did indeed hold generous populations of blue cats.
And that, folks, is how the "urban legend" of blue cats swimming in Utah came to be, or at least that's my version of it.[
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So here goes, fellers and gals, enjoy!
[cool]Here's my take on the whole Utah Lake-blue cat misconception. (It's speculative, for certain, but it's the only logical--or illogical--conclusion I can come up with.)
Though I have never met Out4Trout personally, I truly believe his claim that his ugliest-of-all whisker fish did indeed come directly from the bowels of Utah Lake. (I mean we've got to take fellow BFTers at their word, or surely we're nothing more than truth-stretching savages!)
Upon sneering for the first time at the homely appearance of his fish and wondering if his brute could indeed be an elusive blue, I believe that Out4 wanted to compare Mr. Ugly with a true blue catfish from back east. Was it a channel, or was it blue? A flathead maybe? Certainly not a flathead. He had to make sure! Thus, Out4 came to the conclusion that he should load Mr. Ugly into his car, point his hood ornament in the opposite direction of the setting sun, and speed to a far away watery destination, wherein a blue type of feline fishy swims for a livin'.
So excited was he about his scientific fish-identifying endeavor that Out4 sprinted from the banks of UL, tossed Mr. Ugly into the back seat of his car, and spat gravel for yards as he sped off to begin his epic journey.
Little did Out4 realize in his haste, however, that Mr. Ugly had flopped out onto the road, just as he had slammed his door shut. Still attached to the stringer and dangling precariously from the door, Mr. Ugly bravely clenched with his "jaws of life" all the way to Mississippi, or wherever it was that Out4 eventually stopped, with blue and flathead cats on his brain.
Once Out4 opened his door, he looked down, and with heavy
ness, tears brimming in his eyes, he gawked at his road-weary companion. Bruised and beaten by countless potholes, his skin torn and scraped by hundreds of miles of asphalt, the best Mr. Ugly could do was raise his bloodied head and manage a dutiful wide to Out4. All Out4 could manage was a teary, "Hold on, little buddy," and he took Mr. Ugly and gently laid him upon the shiny brown vinyl, stretched over the padding of his back seat. Undaunted by the grizzly sight, Out4 continued to the banks of his destination and fished for hours in the hot July sun. Meanwhile, Mr. Ugly began to sizzle on the vinyl, baking like a cracked egg on a Phoenix sidewalk at mid day. It wasn't long before Out4 realized he hadn't told his wife about his road trip, so he rushed to his car, hopped in the front seat, said, "Hmmn, something smells good," and sped back to Utah. During the long trip back, Mr. Ugly's bruises and abrasions began to turn his body an even darker shade of BLUE, even more so than he originally was.
Upon returning home and pulling in his driveway, Out4 reached to his back seat, took Mr. Ugly by the stringer and hefted him proudly into the air, for the entire world to see, as he walked triumphantly to his door. It was at this point that TubeDude's cousins, the ones that look like they have wing nuts for ears, saw Out4 with his prize and commented, in unison, "That feller musta just caught a blue out of Utard Lake! Ain’t he the lucky one!"
So excited were TubeDude's cousins that they spread the word to every person with whom they crossed paths that day, and every day for months, that Utah did indeed hold generous populations of blue cats.
And that, folks, is how the "urban legend" of blue cats swimming in Utah came to be, or at least that's my version of it.[
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]There is a picture of your "prize" on another topic about the elusive Utah Blue Cat. I gotta say Geoff, that thing makes a carp look pretty. In fact being the unabashed cat fish eater I am I think once the head of that monster broke the surface of the water I would have cut my line ASAP paddled for shore like there were gators in the water and never gone back to fish that lake again!!!![/#505000]