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Mississippi's river monsters

Brian Broom
The Clarion-Ledger

Mississippi summers are the definition of hot, and folks flock to rivers and lakes to have fun and cool off. Kids on towables scream with excitement as they are pulled by boat, and others take an occasional dip while relaxing on sand bars.

Days on the water are generally carefree, but beneath the surface there are fish of monstrous proportions, including one infrequent visitor to freshwater that is a killer.

No bull

Large bull sharks have the ability to move from saltwater into freshwater.

In 1916, Americans were stunned by newspaper reports of a series of shark attacks in New Jersey. In the first two weeks of July, five people were attacked by sharks and four of the victims died.

Because of their infrequency and sometimes gruesome nature, shark attacks are sensational events. But the fact that three of the attacks occurred in a freshwater creek several miles from the nearest bay was spine-chilling.

"That was probably, most likely, a bull," Eric Hoffmeyer said. "The big ones have the ability to go within freshwater areas. There are records of bull sharks occurring as far north as St. Louis."

Hoffmeyer is a research fishery biologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. He spent several years working with bull sharks on the Mississippi coast.

"They can get up to 11 feet, maybe 12 feet, and several hundred pounds," Hoffmeyer said. "What surprises a lot of folks is that the shallow water areas along the coast are a nursery."

The coastal nursery isn't a surprise to Dave Harville of Waveland. Harville was fishing with Caden Comer, 15, of Bay St. Louis last year when he encountered a shark in the Pearl River about 11/2 miles inland.

Caden Comer, 15, of Bay St. Louis was fishing in the Pearl River with Dave Harville of Waveland when what is suspected to be a bull shark sheared a 25 pound redfish in half.

"He (Comer) had hooked a redfish," Harville said. "I guess it was 25 pounds. He was fighting it and there was a big swirl.

"He pulled in half the bull red. It was pretty shocking. It happened so fast."

Given the location and size of the shark, Harville is convinced it was a bull shark.

"This was an exceptionally large shark," Harville said. "It wasn't a little blacktip shark.

"He had a good set of jaws on him. He was the kind that could take your leg off."

The area Harville was fishing was brackish, but he sees no reason why the big shark couldn't go farther upriver.

"They can go miles upriver," Harville said. "They can go anywhere they want to."

With the ability to survive in a river system, bull sharks could be encountered through much of Mississippi. That said, don't expect to find one gnawing on your leg next time you wade in a creek.

"Basically, it's a pretty rare event that bull sharks come into river systems," Hoffmeyer said.


This 327-pound alligator gar was caught in Chotard Lake and is the largest ever documented.

Possibly the most menacing-looking of Mississippi's river monsters is the alligator gar. With a mouthful of teeth, boney head and armor-like scales, the alligator gar appears to be something left over from the dawn of time.

"They definitely look like a monster. I'll give you that," Matt Roberts, rough fish biologist with the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science, said. "We're talking a dinosaur-era fish here.

"The first boney fishes to show up in the fossil record, gar are right there with them. We are talking in the millions of years."

Their size is also intimidating. Alligator gar over 200 pounds have been caught in several states, but the biggest ever recorded came from Mississippi.

In February of 2011, commercial fisherman Kenny Williams was checking his nets on Chotard Lake. His last net was heavy and appeared to be tangled on a log. When Williams got the net to the surface, he realized he wasn't struggling with a log — it was the biggest fish he'd ever seen.

Williams managed to get the massive alligator gar in his boat and reported it to the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. On certified scales, the fish officially weighed 327 pounds and measured 8 feet, 51/4 inches. Its girth was 47 inches.

According to Roberts, Williams attempted to keep the fish alive, but after being tangled in the net, it was past the point of reviving. The fish is now on display at the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science.

Despite their size and teeth, Roberts said alligator gar are not a threat and do not target humans.

Uber cat

Jere and Katie Smith of West Monroe, Louisiana caught this 50-pound blue catfish on the Mississippi River near Vicksburg. While 50 pounds is a giant, blue cats can grow to almost 150 pounds.

For Southerners, catfish are usually associated with hot oil and corn meal. But there is one cat out there that won't fit in a deep fryer and doesn't come with coleslaw or hush puppies.

The blue catfish is the stuff of legends, and tall tales of the whiskered wonder have circulated for hundreds of years. Even the celebrated novelist Mark Twain wrote about catfish of unbelievable size in "Life on the Mississippi."

In more recent decades, an urban legend of giant blue catfish has become almost universal.

"The most common story we hear about blue cats is people diving below dams," Tyler Stubbs, MDWFP biologist, said. "There are stories of blue cats as big as a Volkswagen. Nine times out of 10, it's that Volkswagen comparison."

And the dam stories are everywhere.

"Everybody's had a friend who works on dams and dives below spillways," Stubbs jokingly said. "It doesn't seem to matter where we've been. At every dam, it's a common phenomenon."

Not to be outdone, rumors of blue catfish the size of school buses have made their way around the internet. But apparently, that's one whale of a tale.

In reality, blue catfish can reach enormous sizes. The International Game Fish Association lists the largest blue catfish caught on conventional fishing tackle as weighing 143 pounds. In Mississippi, the state record is 95 pounds.

To reach weights like that, blue cats take advantage of every food source available. Bass, bream, skipjack and even mussels and snails are in the blue cat's diet.

"They're a catfish, so they'll eat about anything," Stubbs said. "They are very opportunistic. If it's in there, they are going to try to eat it."

Triassic Park

This Gulf sturgean weighed 85 pounds, but they can reach hundreds of pounds and possibly 1,000.

The Pearl and Pascagoula rivers are the breeding grounds for what is likely the largest fish that swims in Mississippi freshwater: the Gulf sturgeon.

"Three hundred to 400 pounds is about the maximum," Paul Hartfield of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said. "We've seen old pictures that look much larger, but we can't document that. Some say they're 1,000 pounds."

Not only is the Gulf sturgeon a giant species, it's an old one with an ancestry dating back to the Triassic period.

"They're one of the most ancient fish there are," Hartfield said. "Sturgeon themselves have been around hundreds of millions of years."

The lifecycle of a the Gulf sturgeon is unique. They winter and feed in the brackish and saltwater of the coast. In the spring they migrate into rivers to spawn. In the fall they return to the Gulf and complete the cycle.

While Gulf sturgeon are in rivers at the same time humans tend to gravitate toward water, they aren't a danger to swimmers.

"They don't eat people," Hartfield said. "They don't even eat fish.

"The Gulf sturgeon feed on marine invertebrates. They feed in saltwater, but they don't feed when they go into freshwater to spawn."

Even so, the Gulf sturgeon does present a real threat to boaters.

Gulf sturgeon have a habit of jumping out of the water during the summer. In areas with higher densities of the fish such as Florida's Suwannee River, Harfield said boaters have collided with them.

"There have been some pretty serious boating accidents where people got hit by a hundred-pound sturgeon," Hartfield said.

The 'freshwater shark'

Paddlefish are sometimes called freshwater sharks and can reach weights of over 140 pounds.

The alligator gar and Gulf sturgeon are certainly odd-looking fish, but the paddlefish may top all freshwater fish. With its shark-like body, gigantic mouth and a paddle for a nose, the paddlefish stands out.

"People might think of them as a freshwater shark because they are funky-looking," Darrin Hardesty, MDWFP biologist, said. "I've heard people call them a freshwater shark even though they don't have teeth. Most of the people in the Delta call them spoonbill catfish."

So, is it a shark or is it a catfish? Hardesty said neither. It's a totally different species and individuals have been known to weigh over 140 pounds.

Paddlefish are found in lakes and rivers across Mississippi, and their numbers are high enough to sustain commercial fishing. But even though they are relatively common, few are seen.

"Very seldom do you catch them on a rod and reel, so I don't know how many people have seen a paddlefish," Hardesty said. "They're not a big predator fish. They don't feed on small fish or anything like that."

Instead, paddlefish feed on phytoplankton which are microscopic aquatic organisms that give lake and river water their green tint.

"It's the base of the food chain," Hardesty said. "They open their mouth really wide and feed on phytoplankton. They swim with their mouth open and filter."

And what a mouth they have. Hardesty said the largest paddlefish he has personally seen in Mississippi weighed 106 pounds with an overall length of roughly 6 feet. The size of its mouth was even more impressive.

"If you were to open the mouth all the way you would probably be able to shove a basketball in it," Hardesty said. "It's pretty large."

Contact Brian Broom at (601) 961-7225 or Follow The Clarion-Ledger Outdoors on Facebook and @BrianBroom on Twitter.