GEARY COUNTY (KSNT) – Oddly-colored catfish that are considered rare in other parts of the nation are being caught much more frequently in a Kansas lake and a team of biologists are trying to figure out why.
27 News got in touch with Ben Neely, a fisheries biologist with the Kansas Department of Wildlife and Parks (KDWP), this week to learn more about why there are so many leucistic and piebald blue catfish in Milford Lake. Biologists are trying to crack this mystery by studying the resident populations of the not-so-blue blue catfish in the water.
Milford Lake is Kansas’ largest body of water with 163 miles of shoreline, according to the Kansas City District of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE). Its waters hold many varieties of native and sports fish, including a strong population of blue catfish.
Neely said the KDWP first started stocking blue catfish into Milford Lake back in 1990. Biologists introduced more than 165,000 of these catfish to the lake in the following decade until a successful breeding population was established.
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Anglers who are familiar with the lake may know that it’s home to an unusually large population of blue catfish that appear completely white (leucistic) or black and white (piebald). While these fish are considered very rare outside of Milford Lake, often catching national attention whenever they are caught, they are not so uncommon for Kansas’ biggest lake.
Alex Bumgardner, an angler from Eureka in Greenwood County, was out fishing on Milford Lake on June 9 when he hooked a piebald blue catfish. He compared his catch to the appearance of a killer whale due to its black and white colors.
“I started yelling to everybody, ‘come check this out!'” Bumgardner said. “I was tickled to death.”
Alex Bumgardner holds up a piebald catfish. (Photo Courtesy/Alex Bumgardner)
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Bumgardner said this was his first time catching one of these weird-looking catfish. He released the catfish after snapping a photo to remember the special occasion, but thought it was still strange that so many anglers are catching piebald and leucistic blue catfish at Milford Lake.
“It’s definitely weird to have that kind of population in that lake,” Bumgardner said.
Neely and other biologists with the KDWP conducted an electrofishing study in 2024 to begin putting the pieces of the catfish mystery together and find out why there are so many blue catfish in the lake that have skin pigment mutations. The study not only included a survey of blue catfish in the water, but interviews with anglers as well. Neely said he was pleasantly surprised by the positive feedback he and others received while participating in the research.
“We’ve had some good positive reception on this,” Neely said. “We’re working with Emporia State University (ESU) to try to look at it a little deeper and the cause of it.”
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Neely and his team members gathered some shocking results following the conclusion of the 2024 study. Of the 2,611 blue catfish pulled from the water, a total of 359 or 13.7% of them were either leucistic or piebald. Neely said these kinds of numbers haven’t been seen anywhere else.
“Milford seems to be an anomaly,” Neely said. “13.7% of the fish we captured showed this, and that is high, very high.”
The biologists hope that an answer might lie in studying the genetics of the blue catfish and the environmental factors present in the lake. Neely said it is possible that inbreeding in the lake’s population of blue catfish might be the answer and that a larger-than-usual number of catfish were stocked in the lake initially that carried the genes which cause leucism or piebald colors to appear. He also said that many anglers, like Bumgardner, will release blue catfish that appear out of the ordinary while keeping normal-looking blue catfish.
“We’ve always noticed these fish in the population, but it seemed rare,” Neely said. “One here, one there. To see that number, that over 13% are exhibiting these characteristics, is eye-opening.”
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Neely said the environment may be to blame with some unknown factor playing a part in the coloration changes, but that this shouldn’t worry people who fish on or jump into the lake. He said that KDWP biologists will return to the lake later in June to begin a new round of research to tackle the secret behind Milford Lake’s odd-colored blue catfish.
For anglers like Bumgardner, the lake remains a popular fishing destination. Bumgardner said he plans to return to the lake again to try his luck with catching another piebald or leucistic blue catfish.
“Once someone hooks into something like that you get hooked on that spot,” Bumgardner said.
Neely said KDWP biologists and geneticists with ESU will work together to try and solve the mystery in the days ahead. You can download a copy of the study conducted by the KDWP in 2024 by clicking here.
Near-record fish caught, released in a northeast Kansas lake
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