Flathead growth rate

[DEER 24/7]

just some good info on the growth rate of flathead catfish that was done way back in 1953 http://digital.library.okstate.edu/oas/oas_pdf/v34/p47_52.pdf

 

[dennishoddy]

Interesting data. Wonder how data collected in 1953 would compare to today in those same lakes. The majority of our reservoirs were not even constructed back then.
I saw the method of collection was rotenone vs today's method of electro fishing.
I was involved in using rotenone in Lake Ponca. The rough fish had taken over the lake so the ODW and Ponca decided to kill the lake and restock.
I was a kid, riding in the boat with my dad. We got 5 gal containers of liquid rotenone, and drove around the lake pouring it in the prop wash. Thousands of fish came to the surface and died, but the kill wasn't complete as the liquid didn't go to the bottom. A month or so later we did it again with pellets in burlap sacks drug around the bottom of the lake.

 

[Bowhunter]

Pretty interesting read. Thanks for the info! I liked the following.

"The average annual increment of growth in length is approximately
flve inches tor the tirst four years of Ufe, three inches during the following
six. years, and decreases to about one inch per year by the fourteenth year
(Table II, Figure 1). The average annual increment of growth in weight
ae~leratea sharply to about five pounds per year by the ninth year of
life (Figure 1). On the basis of three-year moving averages the rate of
weight increase declines slighUy after the tenth year of Ufe. However, this
phenomenon is not typical of large reservoir populations (2) and is more
probably a renection of the fact that the older fish in Walters and Boomer
lakes (see 'Table II) were slower-growing indiTiduals."