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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

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Oregon catfish gives anglers pause — swimmers, too

Drew Beaty shows off the catfish he caught Thursday while fishing in the Willamette at Riverfront Park in Salem Friday, March 4, 2011. (DANIELLE PETERSON  / Statesman Journal)
Drew Beaty shows off the catfish he caught Thursday while fishing in the Willamette at Riverfront Park in Salem Friday, March 4, 2011. (DANIELLE PETERSON / Statesman Journal)

FISHING -- Eat your chicken livers out, Southern boys. A huge channel catfish caught this month in Oregon's Willamette River proves that we got salmon... and big cats, too.

While fishing with heavy gear at Riverfront Park, Drew Beaty of Salem landed a 3-foot-long channel catfish estimated at 25-30 pounds, according to a story in the Statesman Journal.  He doesn't know for sure, because it's just a catfish. He didn't weigh it.

But Gary Galovich, the western Oregon warmwater fish biologist for the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife office in Corvallis, said Beaty's catfish is remarkable on a number of levels.

"First of all getting a channel cat that size out of the Willamette, I mean we know they're out there," he told outdoors writer Henry Miller. "But we get so few reports, and most of them are downstream from Salem.

"But even more so, being able to catch a channel cat this time of year, I mean the river's up right now, and the river temperatures are pretty cold, too. So it's really surprising that he would be able to catch something like that."

Beaty donated the fish to biologists, who plan to study and age the fish.



Rich Landers
Rich Landers joined The Spokesman-Review in 1977. He is the Outdoors editor for the Sports Department writing and photographing stories about hiking, hunting, fishing, boating, conservation, nature and wildlife and related topics.

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