Austin and Wesley Partridge show off a stringer of Barnett Reservoir cats. The anglers from Terry were fishing from the family pontoon boat. Photo by Robert H. Cleveland Jr.

The lure of catfishing can best be explained in one simple statement: Sprawling is allowed, if not encouraged.

Standing -- or even sitting, for that matter -- is not required. If you have a big enough boat or a soft enough place on a grassy bank, lying down is actually the preferred posture for the sport.

"I remember growing up, when my dad was first teaching me how to fish, we did it all, from bream to bass to catfish," said Wilbur Thomas of Vicksburg. "He'd be all business when we'd go after bass, and he was very serious about bluegill, especially up at Lake Chotard.

"But our catfish trips -- they were different. His whole attitude was different -- laid back, you know. We'd put in the boat, run up the river to a big sandbar, stop, cast our lines in the water and relax. We'd lay out blankets and lay down on the sandbar. We'd put little bells on the rod tips and when they'd tinkle, we'd get up and go get the fish. If I wanted to explore, I could, but mostly we just lay there and talked or lay there and slept. I think that's probably why I fell in love with whiskered fish."

Half a century later, Thomas still makes those trips. In his lifetime, he has gone from student to teacher as a fisherman, passing on the lessons of the water from his father to his children. Those grown kids now chase bass in the spring and fall, and they all target bluegills when they want a big fish fry. But when summer comes, they still come back to Dad, his pontoon boat and the Mississippi River.

"When you're talking quality time, it doesn't get any better than a catfish trip," Thomas said. "Everybody relaxes, and we get caught up."

And when you're talking quality eating, it doesn't get much better than an ice chest full of catfish. Filleting up a big mess for a fish fry is about as Southern and as much Mississippi as you can get.

"Yes, and there's that," Thomas agreed.

Finding a catfish dinner is as easy as driving down the road. This is Mississippi after all, and fresh, hot catfish plates to go are now as much a fast food staple as a hamburger.

But if you think that's good, you're missing out.

"My apologies to the catfish farmers and their industry, but it's not the same as catching them yourselves, wild from a river or lake, enjoying your time on the water with friends or family, cleaning them up and cooking them yourself," said Keith Partridge of Terry. "Heck yeah, in the long run it is cheaper maybe to buy them in a store. But it's not the same."

No, it isn't, and what makes catfishing such a great thing in Mississippi is that finding a place to catch catfish is just as easy as finding a restaurant or store that sells them.

"We aren't hurting for places to catch catfish, that's for sure," said Ron Garavelli, chief of fisheries for the Mississippi Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks. "Shoot, it doesn't matter where you live in this state -- if you got the 'want to,' you've got a place nearby to catch catfish."

Garavelli hedges a bit when he talks of the southeastern corner of Mississippi, which is still recovering from the effects of Hurricane Katrina, and even a part of the Delta, which only a month later was inundated with the heavy rains of Hurricane Rita. The two 2005 storms did a lot of damage to many catfish holes.