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Ouch, that looks painful. We have invasive (brown bull-head) catfish in New Zealand. I was lucky enough to go along with a a school group who were participating an education and control programme. So I heard about the venomous catfish spines there.

Fortunately they have the population under control in that lake so they are mostly only small catfish.

https://theturnstone.substack.com/p/beneath-the-surface

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I remember reading that issue of The Turnstone -- I love that the project involved the local kids as Catfish Killas! I supposed, in this instance, I was the opposite of that...

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I know this makes me a terrible person, but I thoroughly enjoyed this account of your pain and trauma.

(However, I am just enough of a decent person to not say "more! more!", however fascinating this newsletter was. Please do not be placing more of your extremities in the possibly dangerous orifices of random wildlife, thank you in advance.)

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Just for you, Mike -- I saw a snake today and did NOT pick it up

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KEEP NOT DOING STUFF LIKE THAT. thx.

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May 15Liked by Heather Wall

Glad you’re ok, Heather! What an adventure.

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May 15Liked by Heather Wall

Darn! That was pretty exciting. Since I didn't read the end first, I had no idea whether you were writing this from your house or from an ICU! Glad poor Heather didn't get septicemia or some such from s vicious five-foot long catfish! There used to be a reality show called Hillbilly Hand Fishing, which was pretty entertaining in a kind of simple minded way!

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I really was a little worried -- I didn't know if there was bacteria in catfish mouths, and the rinsing off of my hand in the lake water didn't really feel effective... I'm glad the hydrogen peroxide worked so well!

I'd watch Hillbilly Hand Fishing, if only to see how big the catfish get. Not something I want to try, though

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