Guide Van Hughes believes in the power of blue catfish, not only because he’s caught many of them but because he lost part of a finger to a 32-pounder.
“I was fishing with my 10-year-old son in a 2005 tournament,” he said. “We were anchored in the river near the mouth of Bluestone Creel.”
Tournament catfish had to be released alive, so Hughes had a big blue catfish he caught on a stringer tied to the boat.
“About 10 p.m., we caught a 42-pound flathead,” said Hughes, who untied the stringer with the blue cat in order to put the flathead on it, and he had his hand in the blue cat’s mouth.
“When I tried to pull out the stringer, it had a knot, and I reached inside the catfish’s mouth to loosen the knot when the catfish went crazy,” he said.
The big blue began to spin, and a loop in the stringer wrapped around Hughes’ right middle finger and ripped loose the last joint, leaving it hanging by a thin piece of skin.
Hughes got immediate help from a nearby fishermen, called his brother, Glenn, and eventually got back to the Bluestone Landing, where his wife, Tammy, was waiting to a Henderson hospital.
Doctors re-attached the fingertip, but infection set in 10 days later, and Hughes had to return to the hospital where doctors removed his fingertip. It took him two months to fully recover use of his right hand.
“I’m proof of how powerful catfish are,” he said.
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