For decades, the Ohio River and other fisheries in the region have been premiere destinations for trophy blue, flathead, and channel catfishing. Amateur, professional, and commercial fishermen have noticed a significant decline in the trophy catfish population in recent years, alongside the growth in popularity of pay lake fishing.

Trophy catfish are an important part of the catfish population. The average female produces 10,000 eggs per pound of weight she is, thus the larger the fish, the more offspring it can produce. These larger nests of eggs require very aggressive, large males to guard the eggs and fry from predators until they can fend for themselves. Smaller males and females are unable to defend as successfully during the spawn, leading to lower reproduction numbers each year, just as we’ve experienced. 

Every year, thousands of pounds of trophy fish are removed from their natural habitat and placed in unnatural environments to generate revenue where they generally die within weeks of arrival and are not consumed. This cycle is repeated periodically throughout the fishing season, needlessly leading to thousands of pounds of dead catfish in dumpsters. We would like to see a ban of all trophy catfish taken from public waters for use/sell/or distribution to pay lakes.