They are caught with hard lures as well as soft plastics, cut bait, and live or dead shrimp.

Gafftopsail catfish live on the Atlantic, Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico coastlines from Cape Cod to Brazil.

Its appearance is typical for a catfish except for the deeply forked tail and the venomous, serrated spines.

It resembles the hardhead catfish, but its dorsal spine has a distinctive fleshy extension (like the fore-and-aft topsail of a ship).

The largest recorded weight for a gafftopsail catfish is 4.54 kg (10.0 lb)[4] and 69 cm (27 in) in length.

As gafftopsail catfish grow longer, they increase in weight, but the relationship is not linear.

[6] Data from the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission indicate, for the gafftopsail catfish, c = 0.000493 and b = 3.075[7] The relationship described in this section suggests a 12-inch gafftopsail catfish will weigh about one pound, while a 20-inch fish will likely weigh about five pounds.

Gafftopsail catfish spawn over inshore mudflats during a relatively short time span (10 days) from May to August;[9].

[10] The gafftopsail catfish is a common catch in the Southeastern United States, although it is also caught as far north as New York.