Catfish with child's basketball in its mouth-Truth!

Catfish with Child’s Basketball Caught in Its Mouth-Truth!

Summary of eRumor:
The story comes with pictures of a catfish with what appears to be an inflated ball stuck in its mouth.  It says the details are from an article in the Wichita Eagle newspaper.
The Truth:

According to an article in the Wichita Eagle from May 30, 2004, this story is real.

Wichita resident Bill Driver was standing on the deck of his house near Sandalwood Lake when he saw an 8-inch child’s basketball floating on the surface.
But the ball wasn’t floating normally so he went to investigate and discovered that the ball was stuck in the mouth of a large flathead catfish. He called to his wife to get the camera then grabbed a sail from his 9-foot sailboat to use to try to coax the catfish closer to his private dock.  Driver says the fish tried to dive several times but was clearly exhausted from having such a buoyant object in his mouth.  He tried several times to get the ball out and finally succeeded by piercing it with a knife.
He estimated the weight of the fish to be about 50-pounds.



Last updated 7/11/04