Chats Lake Catfish Catastrophe

A couple of weeks ago, I found it strange that I didn’t hook a single channel cat while fishing with dead bait on the Mississippi below the Galetta dam. Bass and walleye were biting, but the only cats I saw were a couple carcasses floating by the dock in Pocket Bay. So it was with some alarm that I received a call from my mother on Sunday night reporting a mass catfish death on the Ottawa River between Cheneaux and Fitzroy Harbour. My brother buried ten that washed up on the White Cottage beach alone. Devastating.

Update: Ottawa Riverkeeper has the most complete version of this story. Interesting that the Quebec Ministry of Natural Resources is not alarmed. The Ottawa Citizen has this creepy slideshow on the carnage.