Hungry catfish snags scientist by the foot

Here is a hilarious story I picked up from the Hutchinson News.

This tale sounds fishy enough, but victim has witness to 'attack'

HAYS - True to its species' reputation, a 30-pound flathead catfish roaming the bottom of a southeast Kansas river saw Curtis Schmidt's foot - and promptly chomped. And didn't let go until Schmidt hopped ashore.

"Nobody's ever heard of that before," Schmidt said, and he should know: he's an assistant curator of herpetology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History.

And lest the tale sounds just plain fishy, Schmidt has a witness: Travis Taggart, also an assistant curator of herpetology at the Sternberg.

Schmidt's unusual encounter happened while he and Taggart were driving from northwest Kansas to Pittsburg for a late February meeting of the Kansas Chapter of The Wildlife Society.

On the way, they stopped near Neosho Falls to trap mudpuppies - aquatic salamanders - and put on their waders before stepping into the 33-degree Neosho River.

Something on the murky bottom bit Schmidt.

"I just started wondering what had hold of me," he said. "It just didn't hurt at all. I just felt it clamp around my foot."

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Tags: News, Catfish, Animal Attack, Neosho River, Kansas, Pittsburg