So that water in Virginia can get very cold. That doesn’t seem to be well understood, but I would not be surprised in a few years for Virginia to back off of their strong suggestion to kill every one encountered policy.Īs for cold water survival, these fish survive winter in warm water fisheries. It seems from listening to him that while they have to be consuming just MASSIVE amounts of food, the electroshock surveys aren’t finding decreased numbers of bass and other fish in the waters shared with snakehead. John, maybe? Anyway, he has been studying these fish for ten years here. I also wonder if they can survive and thrive in cold water thereby becoming a threat to out trout population.Īt an outdoor writers association convention last year a talk was given by the Virginia biologist Odenkirk, my apologies to him I don’t remember his first name. I am curious as to whether or not they are as destructive to the eco system as has been thought. The district biologist told me they’ve already seen some gargantuan fish, and they’ve only been in there a few years. There’s also an active restocking program (including a public lake right in the center of the northern snakehead introduction area) that’s showing great growth rates. I don’t think they’re going to compete with gator gar, but they might make a good prey item for the adults! There’s some cool work being done on gator gar in Arkansas right now - turns out they’re a bit more widespread than believed, and they sometimes spawn in much smaller streams than anyone suspected (essentially running up into flooded fields). An unofficial rumor suggests a bit more nefarious motives. When told that he needed to destroy them, he drained his ponds without realizing that they would just slither over the berm into an adjacent ditch. The official story is that a catfish farmer in the lower White River drainage (just outside of Brinkley) decided to diversify to target Asian-American markets. Hey Zach, they weren’t stocked by the state, but the story depends on who you believe. (photo above is of an Arkansas fish from a couple years back)
ARE SNAKEHEAD FISH EDIBLE FREE
If you’re driving through or have an afternoon free after a morning duck hunt, it’s well worth a stop. There’s a few bowfin in some of the ditches, too. If you walk the levees and drop a fly near any overhanging grass or brush you’re likely to get blasted. When the rice paddies aren’t pumping you can have clear enough water to sight fish.
They’re shallow, mud-bottomed and without much cover. The ditches that they were introduced into in eastern Arkansas actually offer some pretty amazing flyfishing opportunities. I wouldn’t be surprised if they show up in MS and west TN soon. The Arkansas population is expanding pretty rapidly despite an expensive and largely ineffective eradication effort. The Potomac fish are here to stay, and I’ve heard that the floods of the past couple of years may have allowed them to colonize some other Chesapeake tributaries. Pygmies are stream-dwellers, behaving rather like our redeye bass do here in the southeast, and are very fun to fish for. These things are cool fish with beautiful colors. Across much of rural SE Asia you can find locally-caught snakeheads in the markets, often including the pygmy snakehead and similar species. I think only the northerns are in aquaculture, or at least in wide use. They’re spectacular predators… and yeah, they do taste good. Their only sin is being somewhere they don’t belong, though no fault of their own. “Hideous, slimy creatures”? It’s not like they’re politicians or something.
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