Kill the Blue Catfish

[SteveL]

According to VA's chief fish biologist, the herring is a bit of a mystery. The populations have crashed all up and down the east coast including streams and rivers where no bluecats exist or any real commercial fishery for herring. I see loads of herring in the James River in Richmond every spring right at the fall line. It seems like millions but could be misleading as the fish really stack up just below the first set of rapids on the James.

You make an important point regarding the range-wide mystery on why river herring populations are not rebounding. I edited my post to suggest the cats my be a potential additional adverse impact to consider in the Potomac and James on top of whatever else is depressing their populations range-wide.

Blue cats are now very commonly caught by anglers fishing on the Potomac well above tidewater to the area just below Great Falls--the numbers of them in the non-tidal areas have increased rapidly in the past few years.

[Don Hershfeld]

I have no beef at'all with any of SteveL's points, or possible explanations/concerns.
Not only are they plausible and worthy of concern, they are even very well and respectfully written.

Hmmm...

Maybe I should copy that text,
sparingly edit to relevance in another very nearby locale,
lose the whole contamination angle,
differentiate between coast-wide declines with and without a new and foreign source of apex predation
and river reach-specific declines with more uniform potential for resumption of historically native apex predation,
and then just substitute the words "reintroduced otters" for "introduced blue catfish",
while also switching "formerly generous C&R trout fishery" for "river herring".

I don't actually expect anyone to follow that, but it was fun to compose.
And now that fisheries near and dear to me are falling like flies, I have more time to write.

Wonder if the same general observations so revised might then appear at least as plausible, in certain eyes?
Would sure like to think so!

[CaptainK.Salmon]

I know most of the commercial guys have been pushing for them to open up the american shad fishery. Its more to it than every one knows the major problem is not the catfish its the stripped bass. They are the ones gorging on the river herring, white/hickory shad and small fish. Instead of killing all the big blue cats why not open up the season more on stripped bass? The answer is that VMRC has restricted the rec anglers so the commercial guys can profit off of these fish while filling pockets with tax dollars. VMRC should be the ones to blame not the blue cats.

I have said this many times, if any fish gets ate by a 30lb or larger catfish then he needs to be ate because he is sick or hurt. Most large catfish are slow and about 1/3 are blind in one of his eyes if not both.

The James river big catfish population has dropped major within the last 4 years. It has been rumored that the VMRC has turned heads while checking commercial boats with over limit's of big catfish. I fish from Hopewell to hog island normally 100 trips per year and i have seen VMRC maybe 1-2 times within the last 7 years.

[JPritch]

KSalmon, I have heard others discussing the trophy blue cat population crashing in the James river in recent years. I agree with you that there are people out there, both with commercial and recreational interests, that aren't abiding by the one big fish per day rule. I also hate to say this, but I think we as catch-and-release anglers are impacting the fishery in a minor way. The amount of boats that target blue cats is insane. I try to fish weekdays, off hours, and far from ramps, but there is pressure on the fishery on the entire river and all its tributaries. Most fish are CPR'd, but you gotta think that with all the handling and removal of their slime layer and the potential for infection from the hooks, that alot of the CPR'd fish don't make it. It's almost a given at every tournament that either a fish won't make it, or there will be fish that have to be played for a long time in order for them to swim off. I doubt all of them make it either.

The main reason for me is the biomass of all the smaller cats taking a toll on the trophy fishery. It's a theory that was presented by Greenlee, and I tend to agree with it. It happened on the Rapp, and is ocurring on other tidal rivers in VA. The tidal river blues go through a boom phase, a leveling off, and eventually a decline. The Potomac will probably one day show the same thing the James is.

[Hookman571]

Loads of replies here but I want to throw one more thing in the mix.
Rock fish with a Blue Cat stuck in it's mouth. My wife and I came across this fish near Cobb Island while we were Croaker Fishing 5/9/2011.
Unless somebody did it as a prank, it opened my eyes. It was a big Rockfish. 5 Gallon bucket is to show size comparison.

[CaptainK.Salmon]

I could see a big blue catfish trying to eat a dead stripper but its not possible for him to catch him live.

[Hookman571]

I could see a big blue catfish trying to eat a dead stripper but its not possible for him to catch him live.

The Big Catfish in the tank at Bass Pro ate one of their stripers as well as one of their pickerels. We have to exclude that though as you can't really call that tank natural. However, the photo is the other way around. The striper tried to eat the Catfish. We've all seen dead Stripers with Big Alewives or Herring stuck in the throats. I've also seen Stripers in the surf chasing anything that swims.

[martineta]

The main reason for me is the biomass of all the smaller cats taking a toll on the trophy fishery. It's a theory that was presented by Greenlee, and I tend to agree with it. It happened on the Rapp, and is ocurring on other tidal rivers in VA. The tidal river blues go through a boom phase, a leveling off, and eventually a decline. The Potomac will probably one day show the same thing the James is.

Fish are no different than cattle. You can stick 1,000 steers in a 1,000 acre pasture and they will eventually eat themselves out of house and home ending up with a bunch of scrawny cattle. Cut that number to 330 steers and they will all grow fat and sassy but the total pounds of animals regardless the number of animals will be the same. Good pasture can produce only so many pounds of animal protien grazing on it. Lakes, Rivers, and Streams are no different in how many pounds of fish they can support.