A spillway, a gar and a flathead: Dat Van goes looking for river monsters
His one new video answered a viewer's request for flathead catfish, and the comments are mostly asking where the spot is.
Dat VanStory of Why this story? The channel's weekly summary: what went up this week, what is drawing views now, and where the channel stands among similar channels.
I Tested if This Spillway Actually Holds River Monsters
On a usual day, Dat Van's channel draws a little over 200,000 views, and this week looked almost exactly like that. What changed was the scenery. His only new upload, "I Tested if This Spillway Actually Holds River Monsters," leaves the ponds and lakes for rushing water below a dam, to see what lives there.
The comments give away some of the answer. One viewer thought a shape in the water was a gator before it turned out to be a gar. Another thanks him for finally delivering the flathead catfish they had asked for. Most of the rest want to know where the spillway is, which he does not say. A few have taken to filing requests of their own, from spotted and longnose gar to a long-running daily plea for a glide bait, and the dolphin sound effect he slips into the edit has come back for another round of teasing.
The spillway video has made a solid start, but a ten-day-old upload is still pulling slightly more views each day: "Every Time I Catch A Fish My Bait Gets DRASTICALLY Bigger," the kind of escalating challenge his Texas fishing channel does well. Further back, "Fishing Trip ALMOST Went Horribly Wrong..." has passed three million views and keeps adding to that more than three weeks on.
The subscriber count held steady at 808,000, third among the fishing and outdoors channels close to his size. Farmhouse on Boone is the one running far above its usual pace this week, while Andrew Millison is having a quieter stretch.
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What viewers say
I asked for flathead catfish and I received ty dat
@DRIVENBYAMRSee it on YouTubeAt first i thought it was a gator but it was a gar. by the way i almost caght a gar last saterday.
@JensenWashko-k1dSee it on YouTubeDay 114 of asking for a glide bait❤🎉 love ur vids so much
@JacksonHairfield-xd4hhSee it on YouTube
Public comments from the video's page on YouTube
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The videos drawing views on Dat Van right now
- Channel
- Dat Van
- Subscribers
- 808,000
- Videos published this week
- 1
- Video published
- October 3, 2026
- Video views so far
- 21,829
- Views on its first day
- 18,108
The numbers
Here are the figures behind Dat Van's week of spillway fishing.
💡 Test your knowledge
Flathead catfish are also often called by which nickname?
Mudcat is one of the most common nicknames for the flathead catfish, alongside shovelhead and yellow cat.
