Length and Weight
A member of the Ictalurus genus of American catfishes, channel catfish have a top-end size of approximately 40-50 pounds (18–23 kg). The world record channel catfish weighed 58 pounds and was taken from the Santee-Cooper Reservoir in South Carolina, July 7, 1964. Realistically, a channel catfish over 20 pounds (9 kg) is a spectacular specimen, and most catfish anglers view a 10 pound (4.5 kg) fish as a very admirable catch. Furthermore the average size channel catfish an angler could expect to find in most waterways would be between 2 and 4 pounds.
Channel catfish will often coexist in the same waterways with its close relatives, blue catfish, which are somewhat less common but tend to grow a lot larger (with several specimens confirmed to weight above the 100 lb. mark).
As channel catfish grow longer, they increase in weight. The relationship between length and weight is not linear, but instead follows a pareto law. The relationship between length (L, in cm) and weight (W, in kg) for nearly all species of fish can be expressed by an equation of the form:
Invariably, b is close to 3.0 for all species, is the length of a typical fish weighing 1 kg. For channel catfish, b = 3.2293, somewhat higher than for many common species, and cm.
Read more about this topic: Channel Catfish
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