What is a mud cat?

[cajunduck man]

Originally Posted by Tjethro85

The last part jean or jonne i believe is French for orange or yellow. The gou jonne is usually followed by a cai for cat. My stepdad from mamou has always called then that. He also said that any mullet that calls a fine tasting catfish such as a flathead a mud cat is not very bright.

I agree with your step-dad about confusing a mud cat with a flathead. Actually in French, or in this case the Cajun French dialect a mudcat is called goujon in most areas. In the area around Mamou that your step-dad is from they did add the word jaune which is French for yellow; hence goujon-jaune (yellow catfish). The Opealousas catfish was referred to as a goujon-caille (spotted catfish, caille pronounced "ky" is French for spot or spotted). Other areas of Cajun country referred to a mudcat just goujon. My dad and his friends (Acadia and St. Landry Parish) often referred to an Opealousas cat by it's slang name in French "manche-ouaouaron" which translated literally means bullfrog eater. Blue cats and channel cats were called "barbue" (bar-boo). The word for cat is "chat" pronounced "shah" so if that was put on the end of the word in French around that area I'm glad that I was able to learn another name for that catfish. I'm sure that there were other names for these fish as many of these communities were pretty much isolated until after WWII and there were many dialects and slangs among the Cajun French. One of my favorites was the French word "caouanne" pronounced ka-wan. (short a and don't pronounce the n) which means logger-head or snapping turtle. In some areas, I guess it was because of snapping turtle the word was slang for something that women had and men wanted.