Dabbling in the mysteries of fish colorations and shadings

Brian Van Acker holds a catfish, which might be a non-native white catfish. (Provided)

Brian Van Acker raised a question about fish colors that I receive regularly in some form.

“I caught these two channel catfish [on a June weekend] in two different bodies of water,” he tweeted. “The first was 25 inches, 7 pounds; the second was 24 inches and guessing 5 pounds. Their colors are very different. What would cause this? Different bodies of water? Age of the fish?”