An Investigation Into Lewis & Clark's Claims of World-Record Catfish | With Spencer Neuharth
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- Опубліковано 31 січ 2022
- On September 24, 1804, Lewis and Clark's expedition stopped on the MIssouri River near present day Vermillion, South Dakota. According to journal entries, that night two of the men caught catfish that would approach world-record size. But our own Spencer Neuharth is skeptical of their haul, so we sent him to investigate this claim. Did the crew really catch 100-pound catfish? Or might it have been something else?
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Im betting on the 100 lb cat, they were coming out of the Stone Age, little to no fishing pressure, dead buffalo in the river. Yeah its possible. Lewis and Clark encountered a squirrel migration with millions of squirrels swimming across the river. Things were different, way different.
I think this pandemic has taught people the importance of multiple streams of income, unfortunately having a job doesn't mean security rather having different investments is the real deal.
Blues and flatheads, native to the Missouri, regularly reach over 100 pounds so it doesn't seem remotely surprising to me or even something to be skeptical about back in that era? The misidentification seems unlikely as well since the explorers would have been very familiar with catfish from back east, though smaller versions. Unlike the western mammals which they had no corollary for in the eastern us. Anddd the biologist at the end just agreed with me lol. I think Spencer just wanted Meateater to pay for him to go fishing for paddlefish lol. That's good hustle.
This feels like a middle school science project where you realize your results aren’t what you thought they would be but you power through anyways because the sunk cost is too high. Seems pretty clear right off the bat that a catfish, pre-colonial settlement of the west, would get that big and not need to be a paddlefish.
Lewis and Clark were exploring 220ish years ago, before commercialization, over fishing, pollution, etc. Those fish had been unpressured for millions of years with only Native populations fishing them. We know for a fact that other species of wildlife have shrank over those 220 years from outside influences. I don't doubt for a second that back in 1803 there were far greater numbers of large fish in the MO river. Also who in their right mind would ever confuse a paddlefish for a damn catfish lmao, go on somewhere with that crap lol.
To be honest this episode was summed up very well in the last 4 minutes and didn’t need the rest… I think that Spencer just wanted to go paddle fishing and thought “how can I write this off as a work trip” haha
At the time of Lewis and Clark's expedition they had Sycamore trees that were so big that 14 men could sit at a table inside the trunk and have lunch. Those trees no longer exist, but that doesn't mean they never did.
There is absolutely no way they would have caught a paddle fish and thought is was a catfish. The paddle fish is so unique they would have realized it wasn’t like anything they had seen before.
We need a Lewis and Clark series!
The catfish that they zoomed in while speaking about blue catfish was a channel. A few minutes later, they zoomed in on a blue catfish. Paddlefish are filter feeders requiring them to be snagged and not caught. Most likely, Lewis & Clark crew was fishing with bait. The Missouri River was a different system prior to dams being built; a lot more nutrient inputs, habitats, and a more productive system. Catfish, in general, were not subjected to commercial harvest or anthropogenic impacts and were able to grow to larger lengths prior to the Missouri River having dams constructed. Anyways, I'm glad that Spencer's opinion was swayed, but with Specer having a fisheries background, I was surprised at his skepticism. L&C crew wasn't throwing out treble hooks and snagging fish they caught. Neat video, regardless!
I’m not sure how this show happened? There’s no way the expedition would have made that mistake without documentation. Especially considering they had no idea paddles were there or how to target them if they wanted to.
The untamed wilderness that the expedition got to be a part of would have been spectacular.
Grandparents lived in Yankton, have fished both sides of the dam many times.
Great work on this! Question though.. Why were you releasing the Silver Carp? Those are kill on sight in Missouri. I can't imagine other states want them released alive either.
Bass Lake in Johannesburg, right near the Vaal Dam Wall is well known for "Barbel" (An African species of Catfish) well over 100 Pounds...I did my dive qualifications there and saw at least 3 that were longer and heavier than me...so Catfish there back then when no people were around doesn`t seem all that impossible...
Let's go. This is gonna be super interesting. Meateater never disappoints. I will never stop fighting for Das Boat Canada/Ontario though
An almost untouched land at the time I would expect things to possibly be much bigger and more abundant.
As a historian myself, I feel like there is an avenue that went totally unexplored here: HOW the men on the Lewis and Clark expedition fished. While there may not be any details in the accounts themselves, contemporary records could suggest the likely methods, tackle and bait the men may have used, thereby shedding light on which fish they might have caught. I don't know if the reason for the snagging approach to paddlefish has more to do with it being a less physically harmful means of catching them or because getting them to attack bait is the challenge, but it strikes me that if such a method is how you catch one, that alone would rule heavily against paddlefish being the "catfish" in the historical account. Later documents about fish sizes, populations, and other factors prior to the development of the area would similarly reveal the probabilities. A fun episode to be sure, but if you wanted a show about catching paddlefish, I would have just led with that instead of trying to make a historical argument and then evaluate it by utterly ahistorical evidence and means. But I'll take my historian hat off and put my fishing hat on and say that they look like a hell of a lot of fun to catch regardless!
Great story! The Journals of Lewis and Clark are a must read.
I love this channel and support it completely and also support you questioning reports/history.