Catfish out of the mississippi?

The river is cleaner than a lot of the other water in the state

Im fairly certain the River is cleaner than most other bodies of water we fish out of

Current bodies of water with Mercury warnings somewhere within it


Notice Miss River aint one, and it likely never will. From what I have always read, the current keeps any contaminants from settling in

That's utterly false. We've caught a mess of every kind out of it, and they're delicious. Eat away.

Spot on. Larger catfish caught in the river will have yellow fat. You have to cut that out or there will be a nasty aftertaste.

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The only good thing for restaurants with farm raised fish is the uniformity of size of the fillets since they are all harvested at the same stage in life. But I prefer wild caught fish every time.

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and that farm water ain't near as "clean" as people think....

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I've been wanting to try catfishing the Mississippi. Where is there public access? Every place I've tried so far in the Baton Rouge area had no trespassing signs.

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Don't know about the BR area but if anything like the N.O. area, you'd have to at least get out into the suburbs, cross the levee and see if you can access the river. I've fished the river from the Industrial Canal in the Lower 9th Ward to lower St. Bernard Parish. There are spots where refineries and businesses have the levee closed off but there's lots of access to be found.

If you find a spot just make sure you have a rod that can take at least a couple ounces of lead weights to get that line down fairly quick and hold the bottom or your line will travel downriver with the current. I always cast upriver and by the time my line reaches bottom it is usually straight out from where I'm fishing.

For bait, I use fresh market shrimp, worms, crawfish, liver balls, cut bait and occasionally beef melt. Fish are a fickle lot and what you caught them on the day before may not work the next time.

Liver balls are pieces of chicken liver encased in a piece of my wife's old hosiery and tied off to about the size of a ping pong ball. Melts are really cow pancreas and it is very bloody and a good choice since it is so tough and hold the hook well. That is also my go-to crawfish bait.

I eat blue cat from the mississippi, red, and atachafalaya all the time, and its delicious.

I personally know commercial fisherman who fish the river and their biggest customers are BR restaurants.