snakeheads in the Big D

[woolybugger65]

http://www.mcall.com/news/local/all-b1_5snakeheaddec17,0,2622715.story

[Ditchrat]

The snakehead caught in the Delaware is the first confirmed specimen outside Meadow Lake. However, Tredinnick said officials assume there are more and that snakeheads are already well established in the river.

Got to love Gov. I have personelly seen pics of three of these fish caught in the delaware, as early as four years ago. I identified one of them live, took some pics and my buddie wasted the ugly Bast... called fish and boat and they didnt even want to see and confirm the pics, saying its highly unlikely.

[steelnewbie]

Got to love Gov. I have personelly seen pics of three of these fish caught in the delaware, as early as four years ago. I identified one of them live, took some pics and my buddie wasted the ugly Bast... called fish and boat and they didnt even want to see and confirm the pics, saying its highly unlikely.


3 of them caught in the Delaware??
Uh-oh, it looks like they're starting to take hold, and establish a population.
How bad are these things?? I remember reading about them a couple years ago when one was discovered in a pond, and they (fish commission, in Md I think) wiped out the hole pond.

[jcstikfish]

How bad are these things??

Pretty damn nasty. They can live and MOVE outside of water for a long time. Extremely aggressive predators. They have the potential to push native species out of their enviromental niche. We definately don't want them!


~James

[Ditchrat]

3 of them caught in the Delaware??


Many more then three have been caught in the delaware. However most the ones I have seen or heard about were caught around the same time that the sale or posession was outlawed in PA. I would take and educated guess that many of these fish were dumped by aquarium stores, and home aquarist to get ride of them, as they were not one species but several different species of snakehead catfish.
Additionally marylands ponds dont have preditors like striped bass, and this is and educated guess also, but the stripers in the river wipe out the small mouth, trout, white perch, ect... when winter comes and all the adults, then young herring and shad more out. Ofcource once they get bigger, I wouldnt want to be a fish in that river

I dont think that I would worry to much. Look at it this way, itf they do eat eveything, we have a new sport fish to catch:mad:


http://images.usatoday.com/news/_photos/2002-08-17-snakehead.jpg

http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Oddbal211.jpg

He is a link to a species profile for those who want more info

http://fisc.er.usgs.gov/Snakehead_circ_1251/html/channa_argus.html

[steelnewbie]

www.snakeheadcrazy.com???:bigeek:

Just scanned the article that wooly posted, so this may have been answered in there somewhere, but how far up have they been caught??

[Ditchrat]

, but how far up have they been caught??

The one I saw was at the new hope falls

[Eric**]

I copied this from the B.A.S.S. Website.

Eric


Tuesday, October 18, 2005
Potomac anglers catch thousands of snakeheads

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Associated Press — Oct. 18, 2005

MOUNT VERNON — The water was alive. Snakeheads, hundreds of them, were slithering among the minnows, rising up through the concrete blocks that dam Dogue Creek like salmon leaping for freedom.

And it was something Mark Hammond, in three decades of fishing the Potomac tributary near Fort Belvoir, never dreamed he would see.

"They're in there by the thousands. You could see them literally coming up along the banks. The ones we caught didn't even put a dent in them," said Hammond, 43, an avid bass fisherman from Florida living here temporarily. "We would throw one in the cooler, two others would jump out and we'd have to chase them through the woods."

Since last year's discovery that the voracious, nonnative northern snakehead had infiltrated the Potomac River and its tributaries, fishermen have pulled them up in ones and twos, each catch a major event that further solidified the proof of an entrenched and breeding population.

In the first half of this year, about 15 snakeheads were caught in the Potomac and its tributaries, including several in Dogue Creek, but nothing has matched the haul Sunday and Monday of at least 80. Its cause isn't yet clear.

"I think we have the state record," Hammond said of the catch behind the trailer lot where he and his friends drink beer and practice bow-hunting.

Nothing was normal about Dogue Creek on Sunday afternoon. The weekend rains had swollen this section, a couple of miles from the Potomac just off Route 1, far beyond its usual thin trickle. The ***** creek bed swarmed with small minnows and bluegills inching upstream toward a marshy pond. Among the smaller fish, Hammond's friend Mike Bowers noticed, were an inordinate number of bass.

"Wait a minute, I thought, those aren't bass," said Bowers, 42, of Mount Vernon. "Those are snakeheads!"

Bowers, Hammond and another friend, Tom Dustin, soon got to work. They didn't need bait. With fishing poles armed with three-pronged hooks, they snagged the snakeheads by the backs. They dipped in nets and pulled out clumps of them. They worked into the evening using headlamps to guide their work, hoping, as they had heard, that someone might be offering a bounty for the predatory species.

"We're trying to get paid," Bowers said.

By Monday afternoon, the ranks of snakehead anglers included Woodrow Minnick, 20, and Matt Thackery, 24, but the catch was declining because the water had subsided.

Still, the brown spotted snakeheads could be seen wending their way upstream through thick blooms of minnows.

"See, see, right there! Right under that tuft in the bank: That's a snakehead," Hammond said, now wielding a long harpoonlike instrument. "There are too many of them. They're here to stay."

The northern snakehead, native to China and Korea, first appeared in the area in 2002, when it was discovered in a pond in Crofton, Md. Authorities found six adults and 1,000 juveniles when the pond was poisoned. Last year came what fisheries experts say is a more disturbing development, when more snakeheads -- with no genetic connection to the Crofton fish -- were found in the Potomac, worrying scientists that the breeding population could throw the ecosystem out of balance.

The Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries has been contacted about the catch but had not visited the fishermen by Monday afternoon to verify the details.

However, a state fisheries biologist confirmed from photographs that the fish are snakeheads, department spokeswoman Julia Dixon said.

"We don't really know how they're going to behave in our waters," Dixon said.

"They're a top-line predator, so they're going to be competing for the same food and space as bass, and we'll just have to see what shakes out," she added.

Virginia fisheries biologist John Odenkirk said 90 snakeheads have been caught in the Potomac and its tributaries, including 70 this year. This is a strong indication that the fish are migrating, because they're moving upstream.

"It's incredible," Odenkirk said.

The catch by Hammond and friends did answer a few questions, such as: Can the snakehead actually walk? Not well. On the ground, the snakehead does stay upright, unlike other fish, but wiggles very slowly across the ground.

Allan Ellis, promotions manager at Bass Pro Shops Outdoor World at Arundel Mills in Hanover, said that although gift certificates of up to $50 were still in effect for bringing in snakeheads, they don't apply in this case.

Only "legal methods," not nets or treble hooks, qualify, he said.

"We're not going to give out $4,000 in gift cards for fish caught in nets," he said. "But thank you for your enthusiasm and thank you for ridding the Potomac of this scourge."

[Chucker]

I've heard they're really good to eat. Maybe in an effort to help out the big D we should have a Pocono Mountains Snakehead Bake.

[Linescreamer]

It is amazing how much this fish looks like the 8 lb. Bowfin my son caught in the Salmon River last summer!
http://www.aqualandpetsplus.com/Oddbal211.jpg

[bigbear]

yep looks just like the bowfin that i caught in a Pa lake some 25 years ago:D

[Ditchrat]

yep looks just like the bowfin that i caught in a Pa lake some 25 years ago:D

They look alot like bowfin. Funny thing about bowfin is that they will come out of the water sometimes too.

http://www.dnr.state.oh.us/wildlife/images/fishing/fish/bowfin.JPG