15+ lb Potomac river snakehead
- Thread starter smallguy
- Start date
Ate this awesome beautiful fish, and they are awesome on the table. Yes by law you have to kill them, they are invasive but trust me they are doing just fine. They are just way to wide spread and to hard to target to make much difference.
I hate to say this however a Snakehead being an apex predator and an invasive species is extremely bogus to the native North American fishery that Snakeheads are now apart of. It could mean the demise of many native species.
Says a hypocrite. Most ecosystems in most lakes/rivers were already altered before the snakeheads show up, full of stocked non-native gamefish/foragefish. After all, largemouth bass, bluegills and northern pike threatened California's natives and almost wiped out the only native western sunfish, Sacremento Perch.
Exactly meaning we should learn from our mistakes/errors and not make them again. I'm currently working with a professor at UC Davis who is attempting to conserve and preserve Sacramento Perch here in California. All this meaning, cleaning up the same mistakes that are being made elsewhere that are similar to the errors of judgement that were made in California is by no means progress for fisheries management in California or the USA for that matter. California and Florida are turning into the Frankenstein of fisheries ecosystems here in the USA and this trend should not be encouraged. Why bring in invasives? We in the USA have got a great native sport fishery in the USA to begin with.
Jeremy A. Rich
First thing, it is too late to fix the mistakes. Second thing, I cringed when you mentioned "native" sport fishery since the popular gamefish ain't native to most areas. Third thing, there are no negative effects from snakeheads on the ecosystems beside the waters where the snakeheads were found was already altered, full of non-native fishes.
