Snakehead Woes and bias

Poopdeck,

I'm with you. But I don't really take trips to fish for anything. Unless I want to truly check out something new, which is rare, I fish for what is close and have no desire to travel just to fish. I tend to want to stay close to home and take many short trips. If I didn't live so great to close trout waters I certainly wouldn't be a guy who drives to regularly hit Penns, Spring, Little J etc....I just happen to live close enough by that I can spare a 30-45 minute drive.

I will say Snakeheads have been on my own personal catch list for a while and I will definitely take a drive to catch them. It would be no different than me going to Erie for steelhead. In fact, I've only done that once too. My only point is that if people are willing to flock to central PA and pay guides for trout snakeheads could have the same appeal. They are still "new" to us and a lot of people regard them as trash but I could see them gaining a lot of appreciation.
 
Either way though they are here to stay, don't seem to be devastating the ecosystems yet, and people are starting to love fishing for them..I guess we will see where things are in the future.
 
The area where I SMB fish on the Delaware is generally between new hope and Rieglesville. I consider this my home waters and it's non-tidal water. I'm lucky to be equally as close to the tidal water and fish the tidal section from Trenton to Philadelphia. The flatheads have been in the tidal river for years and I have and do fish for them a couple times a year in the tidal river.

The last couple years our 30 to 40 SMB mornings have been replaced with 10 to 12 fish mornings but a majority of these fish are between 14" and 18". For the Delaware river a 15" is a good fish so seeing bigger ones is encouraging. The discouraging part is not catching the 30 bass that are 14" and under. What happened to the smaller bass? There's been no devastating floods the plaqued the Delaware for three year almost in a row. What has changed is the reported explosion of flatheads above New Hope and scattered reports of snakeheads being caught above new hope.

Not trying to start a skuke conspiracy on the flatheads and snakeheads in the Delaware but it seems, recently, something has changed the fishery. It's been a strange spring so I'm not ready to officially declare a declining SMB population since this year I used a lot of my days off for the shad and striper run and don't have much time left for summer SMB fishing (I don't fish on summer weekends.) By the way, a had a great shad year and a not to shabby striper year. I'm planning a research flathead trip in the non-tidal river in the next couple weeks just to see how prevalent they may actually may be.

I really don't want to see flatheads or snakeheads in my SMB and walleye water and the shad and striper spawning grounds. The shad and striper runs bring plenty of anglers from around the country to The Delaware. Flatheads and snakeheads, not so many if any at all.
 
poopdeck,

I can't speak about the Delaware river because I don't fish it. But I, along with many others have seen the change in the Schuylkill. My friend Jack Mickievicz lives along the Schuylkill near Douglasville where his fly shop is, and he strongly believes the decreased population of smallmouth bass, sunfish, and rock bass is due to flathead catfish. Mike, your thoughts?
 
Outsider,
I apologize, but I am not going to bridge here from a snakehead discussion to a Schuylkill R SMB discussion. If you wish to read my detailed comments on the Schuylkill, you may see them on an eastern Pa water specific site. I have no desire to go through that discussion again. In short, I disagree that it's a FH Cat problem; it is a sedimentation problem that has been developing since the early 1980's.
 
Point taken Mike, but from my experience the drop-off seemed to happen so quickly in so many places. A case in point: There is a stretch of water between Cross Keys and Leesport that I fished for decades. That particular area doesn't look like a lot of the other areas of the river. Rock strewn, good habitat, tons of fish. In fact I've caught several trout there. And despite the thousands of smallmouth I caught in the Susquehanna River in my lifetime, the largest came from that area. The bottom fell out very quickly about 15 years ago. In a year or 2 it went from great fishing to very little.
 
Something I would like to ask you Mike: How does this differ from sedimentation in the Susquehanna River, where the smallmouth population is rebounding?
 
Yea I looked for electro shocking and biologist reports on the diversity of the river but really could not find anything remotely current other then single species like the shad run.

Something is different and that's a fact. What the difference is and wether it's short term or long term is unknown. Could also be the ever increasing numbers of jet skis migrating to the cheaper ramps. With our local ramps going to 25 bucks a day and a state ramp at 80 bucks for the season is enticing more and more jet skis to the area. Could also simply be I'm just having a sucky year.
 
Outsider, I highly doubt flatheads have much impact on smallmouth populations in the long term.

Neither are native to the waters that you are talking about, yet one is considered a well loved introduced species, and the other invasive. Go figure.

Anyway, the two species native ranges have SIGNIFICANT overlap. For example, both are native to the Ohio drainage which included the Allegheny, and its tributaries which IMO are great smallmouth fisheries. Great flathead fisheries too if you look for them in the right places, which I don't. ;-) Add to that, overlap with blue catfish, musky. pike, etc, etc...

So, if your waters have seen a significant decline in smallmouth, it is likely due change in habitat, which may or may not favor flathead, snakehead, or some other species.

Flathead and smallmouth for the most part occupy different niches.
 
Hey guys do the right thing and move the flathead convo over to the flathead thread.
 
Well, both are toothy and have flat heads. ;-)

Seriously, you are right. but much of my argument applies to snakehead as well.
 
Fredrick wrote:
Hey guys do the right thing and move the flathead convo over to the flathead thread.
Click to expand...

Hey guys, to get you off my snakehead love thread I started a snakehead hate thread. Now it's time to get off my snakehead hate thread.

When You started the snakehead hate thread I didn't imagine you would leave the love thread to moderate the hate thread. Let the haters hate.
 
poopdeck wrote:
Fredrick wrote:
Hey guys do the right thing and move the flathead convo over to the flathead thread.
Click to expand...

Hey guys, to get you off my snakehead love thread I started a snakehead hate thread. Now it's time to get off my snakehead hate thread.

When You started the snakehead hate thread I didn't imagine you would leave the love thread to moderate the hate thread. Let the haters hate.
Click to expand...

That’s to much hate for one thread even for you :lol:
 
jifigz wrote:
Good videos Fred. I still need to catch and eat one.
Click to expand...

Yeah very informative videos the peanut gallery has been quite on these videos . I hear they are very tasty .
 
Fredrick wrote:
jifigz wrote:
Good videos Fred. I still need to catch and eat one.
Click to expand...

Yeah very informative videos the peanut gallery has been quite on these videos . I hear they are very tasty .
Click to expand...



A decade or more ago many, if not most fisheries biologists were very worried about how such an invasive species from Asia, never before living in rivers and lakes in our continent would effect the present balance of fish species.

Now more than a decade has passed and it appears the snakehead population has not exploded and had any major negative impact on the fish species already present.

So far, from most accounts, the snakehead appears to have carved out it's own niche without adversely effecting other fish to any great degree. Hopefully the results will be the same with it's expansion to other lakes and rivers.
 
I don't think that they will have all that bad or adverse of effects. I also don't think that they will colonize that much water. I think they are totally going to be a niche fish here in flowing waters. Lakes and ponds may be different, but I don't see them being all that at home in many of our streams and rivers of PA.
 
Sorry Fred I did not see the personal invitation to a response. My response is the same.

Odenkirk advocates for aggressive angling measures (kill and eat them or just kill them) to control the snakehead. I'm still stymied how every video put out by a biased snakehead aficionado spins what he says and reports that Odenkirk says the fears are untrue.

Aggressive kill snakehead laws are what's keeping them in check. Again, I'm stymied how the aficionados conveniently just don't mention that as a factor in their lack of population explosion even though there was a population explosion. As with all population explosions, the explosion levels off. That's nature at its best doing what it does. Let's not mention that either.

I must admit that, other then a few minutes of the first video, I did not view the two new posted videos and I will not be watching the other four. It's readily apparent it will be nothing but spin.

Until Odenkirk declares to the state of Maryland that the predatory expansion of the snakehead is over-characterized and the state of Maryland lifts the kill order I will continue to advocate the wholesale wanton slaughter of the Snakehead. But Odenkirk will never recommend the lifting of the kill on site order. In the environmentally conscious society we live in, a kill on site order has to be tempered with a carefully worded smoke screen so as not to alarm the humans suck crowd. Odenkirk is fully aware that anglers are largely responsible for keeping them in check. Hell a half dozen European bucket anglers sitting in the same place for a month can knock the crap out of the population of any species.

Now this is not to say I will not be fishing for them. This isn't to say that I would not enjoy catching them. I am saying thanks to the angling community for " listening" to what Odenkirk is really saying by his recommendations to the state of Maryland and not what he says to an openly biased snakehead enthusiast with a scripted agenda.

I hope my response was everything you were hoping for. Poopy out.
 
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