Heaviest catfish caught in competition

According to the International Game Fish Association (IGFA), the heaviest catfish was caught by Richard Nicholas Anderson (USA) on 18 June 2011. Anderson caught a blue catfish (Ictalurus furcatus) weighing 64.86 kg (143 lb) at Kerr Lake on Buggs Island, Virginia, USA.

Bigger specimens of Wels catfish (Silurus glanis) have been caught but because there was no means of weighing them before they were released, the IGFA have not been able to recognize them to date. In June 2023, Alessandro Biancardi caught a Wels catfish that measured 285 cm (9 ft 4 in) long in the River Po in Lombardy, Italy. This unofficial record was surpassed on 19 October 2025 when Adrian Gontarz and Krzysztof Pyra hauled in a 292-cm-long (9-ft 6.9-in) Wels catfish during the Mikado 2025 fishing competition at the Rybnik Reservoir in Rybnik, Poland.