Giant Catfish Legends

[Jan Brunvand]

Hello All:

When I got the notice of the latest issue of Contemporary Legend just released online I turned first to Setphen Lochetto’s article on Giant Catfish Legends, a subject I have been tracing for some forty years. I am happy to add a printout of the article to my file on this story, which now approaches about an inch-thick folder of letters, clippings, printouts, cartoons, scans, etc. only a fraction of which I have mentioned in any of my publications. But I will have to include a copy of the following critique, since the present article is somewhat lacking in published references and a bit sketchy in folkloric methodology.

A standout in my file is an undergraduate term paper written for a folklore class at the University of Arkansas in Little Rock in 1985 and sent to me by the author. She systematically collected Giant Catfish stories in a local shopping mall, using a questionnaire, taking notes and tape recording responses when possible. The paper carefully documents her interviews with twenty-six individuals, citing their ages, occupations, how big they said the catfish were, and their level of belief in the stories. Further, the student included five verbatim examples of texts in her paper. In contrast, Professor Lochetto only refers vaguely to “informants,” never noting exactly how many he interviewed nor when and where he interviewed them, and only quoting bits and pieces of their statements. True, the student paper has limited citations of references, while the present piece has many, but these are heavy on cryptozoology, lighter on folklore, and the focus on “digital ethnography” fails to actually enumerate the online sources that were surveyed.

My brief reference to the giant catfish legend (GCL, as the author terms it) in The Mexican Pet is duly noted, but with the wrong date for the book (it was 1986 not 1988) and the odd note in the source list “Publisher not provided” (it was W. W. Norton). Not noted was my inclusion of the legend in Too Good to be True (Norton 1999 and revised and expanded edn. 2014). Here I quoted from an Arizona Highways article and cited examples of the story in a 1985 book about Midwestern river lore plus summarizing more details from my files. Then in my Encyclopedia of Urban Legends (ABC-CLIO, 1999 and revised and expanded in two volumes in 2012), my entry on GCL summarized the tradition and added a Texas example sent by a reader. In my "Type Index of Urban Legends” included at the end of Vol. II I assigned this legend the number 02480 for what it’s worth.

More important than my own contributions to GCL study is what I consider the definitive folkloric essay on catfish and the lore surrounding them—the entry “Catfish” contributed by Jens Lund to American Folklore: An Encyclopedia (New York: Garland, 1996), pp. 130-132) edited by yours truly. In his masterful summary of the whole range of catfish life and lore, Lund draws on his own 1995 book Fisher Folk of the Lower Ohio Valley (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press), and he cites two further articles from the early 1980s as well as the “Catfish” entry from the 1989 edition of Encyclopedia of Southern Culture.

Beyond the GCL itself, the practice of noodling (catching fish by hand) plays a role in catfish lore, as several of the items cited above, including Professor Lochetto’s article, discuss. Besides the noodling articles he cites, see also chapter 7 “Fear and Noodling in Oklahoma," which is part of a wonderful book by Mark Spitzer titled Beautifully Grotesque Fish of the American West (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2017), pp. 110-131. Spitzer is not a folklorist but a writing professor at the University of Central Arkansas by trade, and he is what I would call an “Adventure Angler” by inclination. In his book he describes his relentless pursuit of giant species of the likes of alligator gar, sturgeon, paddlefish, muskie and more, including the huge catfish of an Okie noodling tournament. which he entered as a sort of participant observer. The photos in his book alone are worth the price of admission, and the author's bio mentions that he has also published not just one but two books about gar.

None of my carping (pun intended) should be taken as a rejection of Professor Lochetto’s analysis of the legendary nature of giant catfish stories and their meanings, but it does suggest some caution about referring to, say, the shortage of scholarship on a subject until you have examined the full range of prior publications. Not everything worth knowing about a subject is necessarily to be found on social media or elsewhere online. It looks like the peer review of this article mentioned in note no. 1 was maybe a few noodles short of a full soup bowl.

Now on to the rest of this issue of our journal.

—Jan Harold Brunvand