Many of us have heard a fish story about the big one that got away. But the greatest fish story of them all is the one where humans are the ones that got away. Old American stories, as well as stories told internationally, warned against allowing children to go swimming or wading in certain areas. A parent will be nearby when they hear a splash. They look to where their children once were and only see bubbles rising to the top. These disappearances were often blamed on large catfish.

In more recent times, I have heard and read about divers and underwater welders who have quit their jobs to pursue different kinds of work. Allegedly, this has happened near Bagnell Dam at the Lake of the Ozarks . The divers claimed to have seen catfish the size of -as some stories have it- Volkswagons. Sometimes the fish have been described as being even larger than Volkswagons. Like most fish stories, this one might seem pretty hard to believe. At first anyway. Like I’ve written before, nature can be very mysterious to us; we look out at a body of water and can only imagine what’s underneath. Is it possible that catfish can grow so large that they could or would attempt to eat a human?

A fisheries biologist from Georgia told me of another dam down in that state that divers refuse to dive near. If a car crashes into the water or a boat sinks, it is written off and therefore belongs to anyone who is willing to go down and retrieve it. So salvage companies will pay divers to raise these items to the surface. But some divers will not go into certain waters. But he also says that some divers may not be scared of a catfish actually swallowing them, but that a good sized catfish of any proportion could leave a nasty bite. He said that the divers may also just be scared of a fish pulling their receptors off. However still, he had also heard about a truck hauling a large load of chickens crashing into the water. The truck was recovered, but none of the chickens were accounted for. They disappeared, feathers and all, as if they had been swallowed whole.

Catfish can indeed grow to be very large. Big ones are caught by ‘noodlers’ who catch fish with their arms by using their moving fingers as bait. This act does prove that catfish could acquire a taste for humans.

In Life On The Mississippi, Mark Twain wrote about the 1673 river exploration of Joliet and Marquette. The explorers were warned by the natives that they were on a suicidal trip; that there was a ‘demon’ in the river that could swallow them. Marquette was later startled when a large catfish bumped his canoe. Was there a connection between this large catfish and the Indians’ story about a demon that swallowed people? Twain himself claimed to have witnessed a Mississippi River catfish that was over six feet long and weighed over two hundred and fifty pounds.

Most animals have something called ‘determinate growth.’ A fisheries biologist that I spoke to said, “With determinate growth, the maximum size is determined by some aspect of the [animal’s] genetics. They get to a certain size, reach sexual maturity, and stop growing . . . they start spending all their energy on reproduction instead of growing anymore. But some fishes- once they reach maturity- they’ll keep growing.” This is called indeterminate growth, which means that they’ll keep growing for as long as they live. It takes a while for a catfish to grow. But anytime a lake is built by damming up a river, like Lake of the Ozarks was, there can be fish living in it that are actually older than the lake is.

Plus, it is interesting that catfish have very unusual cells. When scientists take cell samples from animals, the cells need to be stimulated to keep them dividing. However catfish cells are unique because they will continue dividing on their own. Catfish have an electrical charge going through their bodies that is higher than other animals. They use this charge to detect and sense food with their whiskers. As marine biologist Kymbr Wright explained to me, most animal cells die as soon as they’re separated from the main body because they can’t maintain themselves; but catfish cells can divide by themselves and have a longer cell life.

Some writings point out that witnesses who have claimed to have seen lake monsters around the world (the Loch Ness Monster is only one of many) often describe these creatures as having whiskers or whisker-like things on their faces. So there is a belief that these witnesses may believe they have seen some kind of reptilian/prehistoric creature, but they have actually seen a giant catfish poking its head out of the water.

Wright says that some locals living along the Amazon River are afraid of how large the river’s catfish may grow; that they do not even fear piranhas as much as they worry about keeping their children safe from the catfish. She says that some of the catfish caught from the river have been 6-8 feet long and their tails drag on the ground as they are carried over the fishermen’s heads. Some of the caught catfish have had heads that are wider than the fishermen’s shoulders.

Those are just the ones that could be caught and pulled onto land. So could there be even larger ones? Could there be actual giant catfish that could swallow a man whole?

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