What Do You Think

[Wyliecat]

Bowlerman is holding on the left is the fish that I caught yesterday with the tag. The scared place on its head had healed up totally and only showed discoloration in the area.

My question is: Do you think this is a male or female?????

Kinda hard to tell from one pic, but let me know what you think.

Here is the pic of me holding the same fish yesterday, 19 miles from where it was tagged, and about four pounds lighter.

[BUCK]

Can/t tell if its a male or female. the 6 pounds that it lost my have been that the fish was caught and taged july 10 and was full of eggs .I dont know if a fish can have that many egg or not. Maybe wes can help us on that.

[beastmaster704]

the top two look like dark old males but the bottom one looks like a female

[dipnet]

if it had a scar on its head it is probably a male, they grab each other by the head fighting over territory, seen them at santee locked up before during the spawn

[bowler man]

i think the color was a factor of being in a livewell for over 11hrs it was the first fish in my 130 gallon tank during the tournament and it was a all nighter and i have noticed that about all of them in the tank turn dark after a couple hours. due to stress i guess, but it is really cool that it swam almost 20 miles to go back where it was in july

[Wyliecat]

"...the top two look like dark old males but the bottom one looks like a female..."

The fish on the top left and the fish in the bottom picture are the same fish.

The color of the fish had changed totally from July to Monday.

[countryboy79]

I think it is a male because it has that big hump on his back rite behind its head. Most big males has a hump and a bigger head than a female cat.

[chuckie333]

Male or female..........nice fish!!!

[AllenOK]

Here in Lake Keystone, OK, the blues will vacate around May 19th, and move upstream in either the Arkansas River or the Cimmarron River. If they go up the Arkansas, they get about 50 miles before they hit the dam for Lake Kaw. If they go up the Cimmarron, they get about 100 miles before they hit a long area of shallow runs and shallow holes that prevents them from getting much further upstream.

One of the local guides will usually track them as they migrate.

[Rookie12]

They all look like males to me. long, lean, muscular bodies and big wide mouths. Good fish WC and bowlerman.

[dipnet]

color can change guys, they get darker and lighter depending on how deep tthey have been, just cause they are dark dont mean they are male

[Rookie12]

Their color will change depending on how much light they are exposed to. I've caught blues that were almost white in less than 5 ft. of water when it's muddy. Almost all of my deep fish though are light colored.

[FATFLATTIE]

Yeah, color doesn't have much if anything to do with telling the sex of a catfish. There really isn't any surefire way to do so without possibly really harming the fish. Sometimes when they're spawning the males will get the big knots on their head and get a little darker but all that is still variable.

Having a big head and skinny body could just be a really old female. Just can't hardly tell without opening them up. You could stick a pipette and try to see if you can get any eggs or sperm out of the vent or just try to squeeze the vent to see if you can get any eggs to come out but unless it's really close to the spawn that's fruitless too. I've sexed many a catfish in Elizabeth City

I have no idea how much they would weigh but a fish that size could probably lay around 10,000 eggs so if it was a female some of the weight loss could have been from spawning. But this time of year it should have already started to develop the eggs for next year.