Damn, people. No one seems to quite grasp the connection between mudcats and the blues. Simple if you are from mississippi. Today i saw two big gaunt hound dogs walking down the middle of main street on friday afternoon. I am from mississippi! Quite simply and quite bluntly, black and poor folks ate mudcats and in the old south most black people were poor. Black people played blues. Simple. The catfish that are raised in ponds are channel catfish, must tastier than mudcats. Most white folks threw them back in or gave them to some less fortunate member of society. I've caught them, let them lay on the bank for an hour and then watched them swim away when i threw them back in. Serve deep fried mudcat to a group of genteel dinner guests and you would have most likely been tarred and feathered in the old south. Sure, i've ate them and they taste OK if you're hungry but so does a Big Mac.