When I started working at the site of yesterday's small catfish slaughter, the remnants of that once thriving group were up against the bank again. In these photos they mainly look like a dark blob, but I didn't want to get closer. I just followed them along the edge without scaring them into the deep water (and death). Also found a completely different kind of small catfish, on the other side of the pond. These are reddish-brown and not so dense and whale-like as the black ones.
First of all, there should be an actual word for very very small catfish. I have described them as baby catfish because that's what Bill calls them, but that sounds weird, and anyway I see his calling them that as just another aspect of his lifelong experiment with paternity. All of the fish are his children. So are his dogs. I have been looking and their real designation could be fry. I read somewhere that the males guard the nest until the fry swim away about a week or so after they hatch. Then again, that would make them Catfish fry and it sounds too much like a joke. I'm sticking with very small until they get bigger.