When it comes to outdoor pursuits, the options in the Natural State are virtually limitless.

At the top of the list for many anglers today is catfishing. But while the sport of "cattin" is as Southern as grits and stock car racing, the methods employed to land whiskerfish are about as diverse as those who think them up. Many anglers choose to take catfish with rod and reel, a method that a stubborn cat can turn into a battle of major proportions. Others choose "trotlining," utilizing a series of baited hooks tied between two points along the edges of the rivers. Still others try "jug-fishing," a method far more popular when the Arkansas River ran free.

It calls for a stout cord and hooks tied to plastic gallon jugs and baited with various attractants. The jugs are dropped into the water and allowed to float free, with the fisherman following along behind in a boat. You can imagine the excitement when a big cat takes a jug under! There's "limblining" -- tying line and bait to a tree limb overhanging murky water -- and there's "noodling," which is not a method designed for the faint of heart. It requires the angler to wade along sloughs and creeks, running his or her hands back into any hole in the bank or under a log, hoping that a catfish is resting within.

All of these are accepted methods of taking cats, and there are likely others of which I'm not aware. The best news is that, whichever method you choose, the result of your efforts will be table fare fit for a king! Forecasting the best spots to target for cats is also fairly easy. I once surmised in the deer hunting forecast for Arkansas Sportsman that the way to find good deer hunting in Arkansas is to take a dart and throw it at a map of the state. Wherever it lands, there likely is good hunting there. The same is true with catfishing, because these fish live anywhere from small ponds to major rivers and reservoirs and virtually all points in between.

Biologists tell me that there are more than 50 different species of catfish in the United States, and more than 1,000 worldwide. These range in size from mere tadpoles to monsters weighing 300 to 400 pounds. I've read historical records of the first explorers in what would become Arkansas that told of "fish with tentacles protruding from their mouths," some of which were "many times the size of men."

Are these tales more than legend? Larry Griffin, the street supervisor here in Clarksville, worked on the dam at Dardanelle when it was being built.

"One day they brought up divers from Little Rock to work on the footings," Larry recalled. "They went down and came right back up, saying that there were huge catfish down there, some large enough to swallow a man whole, and they were extremely aggressive. They all quit on the spot!"

The three primary species here in Arkansas, at least from a fisherman's viewpoint, are flatheads, blues and channels.

The flathead is a chunky, heavy-bodied fish, somewhat mottled in color with a rounded tail. The current state-record fish taken by rod and reel was caught by Wesley White and Bruce Bennett below the Ozark dam in 1989 and weighed 89 pounds. According to legend, a 139-pounder, the largest on record, was snagged below Terry Lock and Dam near Little Rock in 1982, but snagged fish do not go into the record book.

Blues are more solid in color, their bodies shades of gray-blue. Their most distinguishing feature, aside from their coloration, is a forked tail. The largest recorded was a 116-pound, 12-ounce specimen taken out of the Mississippi River in 2001 by Charles Ashley near West Memphis.