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Snakeheads, first found in a creek near Mount Vernon |
BY RUSTY DENNEN
Twelve-year-old Bradley Johnson was fishing in Aquia Creek last weekend, expecting to catch a bass or catfish.
Instead, he hauled in a nearly 3-foot-long northern snakehead, a voracious and invasive predator imported from Asia. Bradley's mother, Anne Johnson, forwarded a note about the catch and a picture of the fish to The Free Lance-Star.
"It's the biggest fish I've ever caught," said Bradley, who lives in Spotsylvania County and attends Post Oak Middle School.
He was "bottle" fishing with a bluegill on a hook and the line attached to a 2-liter soda bottle, in a boat with his mom.
"I thought it was a huge bass. I pulled it up and said, 'Mom, it's a snakehead!'" They put the fish--estimated to be about 33 to 35 inches long--in a cooler and took it back to her boyfriend's father's house on the creek, where it was filleted and fried up.
"They're pretty good," Bradley said.
It turns out that Aquia Creek is just the latest hot spot for the snakeheads, first found on the Potomac River in a creek near Mount Vernon five years ago.
Imported live to U.S. fish markets for its tasty flesh--and illegally dumped into the river--they're not only thriving but also spreading downstream.
John Odenkirk, a biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries' Fredericksburg office who has been studying the fish, says they've been found as far south as Upper Machodoc Creek in King George County.
The Maryland Department of Natural Resources recently found some while sampling two creeks upstream from the Potomac River bridge on U.S. 301.
Odenkirk said Bradley's fish was impressive.
"Thirty-six inches is on the upper end of what we've seen," he said. "The biggest one we've [caught] is about 15 pounds. That was around 33 or 34 inches." The game department uses boats outfitted with electroshocking gear for its sampling. The fish are stunned and quickly netted for study.
Snakeheads first turned up in the Potomac in 2004, two years after they were first found--and eradicated--in a Maryland pond. At that time they were dubbed "frankenfish" due to their ability to survive for short periods out of water, large teeth and voracious appetites.
Federal officials made it illegal to import or transport snakeheads in 2002. Virginia banned their possession the next year.
Anglers began catching them in the Potomac tributaries, and Odenkirk recorded their inexorable spread downstream.
"Aquia got called to our attention toward the end of 2007."
Among the first reports were one from a fisherman and one about a snakehead that had been caught in a crab pot.
Then in 2008 "It just blew open," Odenkirk said, and calls were coming in frequently from Aquia Creek fishermen and residents.
In a March sampling trip to the creek this year, "We were catching 20 to 25 a day."
Anglers must be mindful of what they do with the fish, he said.
"By law, they're not required to do a thing, unless they want to keep a fish. If they do, they're obligated to kill it and call us," he said. In another scenario, a fisherman could run afoul of federal law by catching a snakehead in a Maryland creek, then crossing into Virginia waters with a live fish in the boat.
Northern snakeheads, among several varieties of the fish in Asia and Africa, are native to China. With skin resembling that of a python, they can grow to 40 inches and 15 pounds.
To monitor their spread, the game department conducts creel surveys and is tagging live fish for study.
Odenkirk said that it was initially thought that the freshwater fish would be naturally limited in their expansion by salinity. But they've proved to be tolerant of brackish water.
"It would not a shock to find them [in creeks] south of Colonial Beach," he said. "But without human intervention, where they are now is going to be their range."
dgif.virginia.gov/fishing/snakeheads .htmlRusty Dennen: 540/374-5431
Email: rdennen@freelancestar.com
