I found this doing a search on blue catfish habits and thought some statements to be false but over all was really informative.

In November 1983, a geologist looking for rock outcrops near Camden, Arkansas, saw a piece of bone protruding from a dirt embankment. Pulling out the bone, the man discovered a 2-foot-long skull with a jutting 9-inch dorsal fin. Paleontologists later identified the specimen as the remains of a 10-foot-long, 1,500-pound catfish that swam the seas 40 million years ago.

Since the unnamed Camden catfish is now extinct (what a pity), we are left with the blue cat as one of the giants of North American catfish.


Common Names – Monikers include Fulton, blue channel, humpback cat, silver cat, white cat, great blue cat, highfin blue, white Fulton and forktail cat.


Description – Blue catfish vary in color from slate-blue to grayish brown on their back and sides, fading to a whitish belly. In muddy waters, some individuals appear albinistic, the pale skin evoking the common nickname White cat.” They are often confused with channel catfish. Both have forked tails and similar coloration, but blues lack the small black spots punctuating the sides of young channels, and their anal fin has a straight edge, with 30 or more fin rays (above).

Trophy-class blues are reminiscent of Japanese sumo wrestlers. Healthy individuals are bizarrely obese, with enormous pot bellies. Small blue cats are streamlined, muscular, and many are distinctly hump-backed.


 
Range – Blue catfish occur in portions of at least 30 states, from Iowa to southern Texas and from Nebraska to North Carolina. They're also found throughout the eastern third of Mexico and south into Guatemala. The native range encompasses the major rivers of the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri river basins of the central and southern United States, but blues have also been introduced in Washington, California and Arizona. State fisheries agencies stock millions in large and small impoundments across the country.

In some areas at the fringe of their range – West Virginia, for instance – blue catfish are so rare they're considered a species of special concern. They're also uncommon over much of their northern range, a decline triggered by commercial fishing, dam construction and stream channelization projects. Alterations have mostly removed the combination of swift runs and deep pools blue cats need to flourish.


Size – The largest specimen recorded this century weighed 128 pounds. It was caught in the Whiskey Bay Pilot Channel in Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin in 1978. The world rod-and-reel record is a 112-pounder caught in 1998 from Tennessee's Cumberland River. This broke the previous all-tackle record established by a 111-pound Alabama blue caught in 1996. As a practical matter, a 60-pound blue cat would be the trophy of a lifetime, and the average hook-and-line fish is under 15 pounds.

Blues over 100 pounds were apparently common in the nineteenth century, and there were rare reports of 200- to 300-pound specimens. Blues over 130 pounds haven’t been reported in recent years, but the 1990s produced a resurgence in the number of heavyweight blue cats being taken. This decade saw the world record advance from 109 to 112 pounds, plus an unprecedented string of 26 state records, including several blues exceeding 100 pounds.


 
A blue catfish’s anal fin has 30 or more rays and a straighter edge than a channel catfish.

Habitat – By nature, blues are big-river fish. They prefer clearer, faster water than other cats, and are usually found over a hard sand or gravel bottom. If you want to catch a heavyweight, don’t waste time fishing creeks, ponds or small lakes. Blues are less likely to be found in slow, turbid waters than other catfish, but they are adaptable.


Food Habits – In many respects, the behavior of blue catfish parallels that of striped bass. Like stripers, large blues feed primarily on shad, herring and other schooling baitfish; consequently they are on the move more than other cats and are frequently found in open-water habitat. Blue cats also favor areas of heavy current, while channel cats and flatheads prefer areas with slow to moderate water flow.

Blue cats are active year-round, except when water temperature falls below 40 degrees. Most anglers fish for them during warm months, but many are learning the species’ habit of gathering in large feeding schools during winter. Some schools may contain several trophy-class fish. Most hold near the deepest well-oxygenated bottom structure available.
Blue catfish also take crayfish, insects, clams and other invertebrates. Smaller fish are taken on commercial baits, such as stink-baits and chicken livers, but not as readily as channel catfish.


Reproduction – This species’ reproductive habits are poorly known, but thought to be similar to those of channel catfish. Those stocked in reservoirs sometimes grow to enormous sizes, but few, if any, reproduce.


Age & Growth – Despite the massive size documented for this fish, most growth studies show a 10-year-old blue cat measuring only 24 to 36 inches long. Giant blues from such waters must be ancient animals. Under favorable conditions, however, blues exhibit a much greater growth rate.

 
Typical Length (inches) at Various Ages
Age 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
Length 6.2 11.1 14.7 18.3 22.1 25.5 28.8 30.6 32.3 34.1


Typical Weight (pounds) at Various Lengths (inches)
Length  20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48
Weight  2.9 5.4 9.5 15.3 23.2 33.7 47.3 64.4

 
Popularity – In much of the South and Midwest, blue catfish populations remain healthy, and anglers targeting prime waters have an excellent chance of hooking a trophy fish. In fact, in many rivers and lakes, blue catfish are a largely untapped resource.

They are one of the strongest fighting freshwater fish and considered excellent table fare. In fact, many guides in the South and Southeast specifically target blue cats for their clients. There are few other species that offer a legitimate shot at a 100-pound fish.
On the down side, blue cats are also a favorite of commercial fishermen. On many bodies of water, the commercial harvest remains largely unregulated, and some trophy blue cat populations are slowly disappearing. A few state agencies are starting to implement regulations to reduce the harvest of these monster fish.   
   
 
 
 ©2005 by Catfish Angler's Society

Stonewall

You can be happy that the James is not the typical fishery
for blue cats.

In a blue cat aging study I read that an 81 pound blue from
the James was aged at 11 years old. Most released fish cannot
 be aged but imagine that none in the James can be over 20
years old and fish nearing 100 are caught annually.