Photo by Michael Skinner.

No fish better typifies the storied history of angling in Mississippi than the catfish, and no catfish more so than the most mystifying member of the species -- the flathead.

You may know it as the “tabby cat” or “yellow catfish,” or any of the other scores of nicknames given the fish. It’s a beautiful fish, but also odd -- odd to the point of ugliness.

“And on the other end of hand-to-gill battle, it’s the second-meanest fish you can run into in Mississippi,” said Art Mott of Brookhaven, one of the state’s growing legion of hand-grabblers.

The meanest?

“A big blue cat,” Mott came back instantly. “Now there is one mean dude.”

A blue cat, no matter how it’s caught, is going to fight with every bit of strength in its body. They’ve been known to bite at a fisherman even after lying in the bottom of a boat for more than an hour -- so imagine what they can do in the water when irate.

“I remember once, when I was hand-grabbing in Barnett Reservoir, I found a box that had two big blue catfish, a male and a female,” said Bobby Herrington of Jackson. “I got my hands on the first one, subdued it and tied a rope through its gills tied to a buoy. I then slid him out, let him go and started trying to get the second.

“We did our grabbing deeper than most folks, so we used scuba gear. I was down there alone in about 10 feet of water trying to get that second fish when I felt something on my shoulder. I turned around and looked right into the face of that first blue cat -- darn thing bit my facemask! I mean, he bit the facemask off my face and wouldn’t let go. I had to fight the darned thing off and swim up.”

That qualifies as mean -- but not the meanest. Herrington battled the one that earned that rating while sitting in the open end of a homemade fish house built to attract mating catfish for grabbling purposes.

“No, that honor goes to another big blue in another box on another day at Barnett Reservoir,” said Herrington, a big old boy in his own right, barrel-chested and as stout as can be. “It was a long cedar box in about 10 feet of water and I pushed a pole down in the box and felt the fish.

“Next thing I knew, things went sort of black and I couldn’t breathe. The fish had backed up against the far end of the box and shot forward with all he had and, at full speed, butted me right in the chest; I was stunned. Then he backed up and did it again! Let me tell you, I couldn’t get out that hole fast enough to let that blue go. I was black and blue all over my chest and shoulder for over a week.”

So much for the horror stories of those variously called “hand-grabbers or “grabblers,” or “noodlers.” They make up a small minority of the people who fish for flathead and blue catfish, true, but we simply can’t leave them out of a story about the two species -- because they tell the greatest tales.