Snakehead Fish Effects – What Can Be Done?

Did you ever see a picture of a snakehead fish and read about what they are capable of?  Many fishermen are concerned about snakehead fish effects on smallmouth bass and other species of gamefish.

Look at those teeth! These are some nasty fish and the fact that they are voracious eaters and can spawn up to five times per year (more often 2 times), breath oxygen and can survive out of the water for several days, most folks have reason to be concerned about how these predators can affect native fish populations.

So far they have been mostly found in the Potomac River and its tributaries, one of the top gamefish here are bass, including smallmouths.  As far as I can tell, the fish have been found in Marylnad, Virginia, Pennsylvania, North Carolina, Massachusetts, Florida and California.

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Snakehead Fish Effects – what can be done?

 The world record snakehead was just caught in Virginia, check out this article from the Washington Post:

Duran reeled in the fish a couple of Sundays ago where the rocks meet the mud at the edge of the Occoquan, a Potomac River tributary. He never got around to measuring his catch, except to put it on a scale, where it weighed in at a fin under 18 pounds 4 ounces.  He was using a green-and-brown lure known as a Kinky Beaver, “a big, five-inch bait that looks like a crayfish,” he said. “The bass really like it. It works really well for snakehead, too.” Original story here

Snakeheads taste good and grow fast so eat them

Chef Chad Wells of Alewife restaurant tossed chunks of raw snakehead fish with cilantro and citrus to make something more ambitious than an $8 ceviche appetizer. It was an invasive-species eradication plan in a martini glass.

Wells wants the Asian interloper, which has settled with alarming ease into Chesapeake-area rivers, streams and perhaps the bay itself, to find a new home on restaurant menus. The chef is confident that once diners get a taste of snakehead, they can be counted on to do what they’ve always done with toothsome fish: wipe them out.

Right now, the people most bent on reeling in snakeheads are chefs, who think serving invasive species could represent an important new twist on the sustainable seafood movement. Some of the biggest names in regional restaurants are trying to get their hands on the fish so they can slice, dice and pan sear the thing into oblivion.

It helps that snakehead, which he served lightly smoked, over rice, with a little dab of sweet soy sauce, is quite tasty.  “It had the same dense, meaty and yet flaky texture of eel with a real sweet aftertaste to it,” he said. “It’s a good fish. It should be. It spends all day eating bass and other tasty fish.” Original article here

Kill a snakehead and you could win $200 from Bass Pro

Join Maryland’s Bass Pro Shops and Maryland’s Department of Natural Resources to help control the spread of the Northern Snakehead growth and be entered for a chance at a $200 Bass Pro Shops Gift Card!

Catch them, kill them and report it to Maryland DNR’s Angler’s Log to secure your chances to win the $200 Bass Pro Shops Gift Card that will be drawn on November 30, 2012!.  For quick reference, scan the Angler’s Log QR below code with your smart phone and save it for ready recall when you land your Snakehead!

Here are some tips to get you started:  We’ve learned that Snakeheads will go after most anything from other fish to frogs, but nticeably, they have been hitting spinner baits,buzz baits, and plastic worms.  We’ve spoken with anglers who’ve been successful bowfishing and having an excellent fishing adventure while demonstrating great control. Original article here

Here’s a video on how to identify the snakehead fish

httpv://youtu.be/cBflLIbFUBM

During the bass spawning season and the rest of the year, instead of keeping smallmouths to eat, eat the snakeheads. They grow quickly so are less likely to be effected by environmental contamination.

If you catch a snakehead fish, keep it, kill it, eat it or dispose of it and be sure to contact an official at your state’s game commission. Keep the snakehead fish’s effects on our smallmouths to a minimum.  Pass this along to your friends by clicking Like or Share. Join our newsletter to keep up to date with more great articles

 

 

 

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