Snakehead Tourney Takes Half a Ton Out of Potomac

Contest removes loads of snakeheads from Potomac

... That snakehead — with fins like a catfish and flesh like a Burmese python — weighed in at more than 16 pounds, the largest caught during the two-day Potomac Snakehead Tournament that ended Sunday at Smallwood State Park on Mattawoman Creek in Marbury, in Charles County. Stack and five buddies — Teamblazer Bowfishing — caught 25 fish in all, nearly 230 pounds, earning them a $1,500 first prize for total weight and $975 for the largest fish.

Seein’ Red Outdoors, a team of youngsters from La Plata and Cobb Island, none older than 16, took second prize — $585 — for catching 33 snakeheads totaling 180 pounds.

The contest, in its second year, removed more than half a ton of invasive northern snakeheads from the Potomac and its tributaries, 1,402 pounds, nearly doubling the goal of its chief organizer, Austin Murphy of Whackfactor Outdoors, a hunting group. Since 2002, when snakeheads were discovered in a Crofton pond, and 2004, when they were found in Potomac tributaries, biologists have worried that this top-level Asian predator would lead to the demise of native fish.

“We’re looking to double last year’s 435 pounds,” Murphy said before Sunday’s weigh-in.

The number of participants in the tournament also doubled this year, to 110 people on 18 teams.

There's no clearer sign that the invasion of the Potomac River, and probably most of the freshwater stream draining into Chesapeake Bay by the Northern Snakehead (or Potomac Pike, as Capt. Mike prefers to call them) is irreversible than the rapid increase in the number being caught during these tournaments.

Fillet of Snakehead Sandwich

The good news is that eating Snakeheads has also become a popular:

But there was more. “We’re not only removing fish from the ecosystem, we’re organizing a snakehead dinner with celebrity chefs,” Murphy said. Cooking started at 1 p.m., and about 75 diners lined up to taste the snakehead ceviche and burgers.

The ceviche was plated on blue corn chips, garnished with vegetables, gourmet style, like on the Food Network show “Iron Chef America.” The ceviche was tart and sweet, melting on the tongue. The burger was brownish yellow outside like a crab cake and smooth and flaky white inside.

Chad Wells, the chef from Alewife in Baltimore who made the ceviche, said some people shy away from eating snakehead because of the name. His mother, for instance. “I just gave it to her without telling her what it was,” he said, and she loved it.

“They fry, grill, sautee, bake, steam — they’re great,” Wells said.

The only real hope for keeping the Snakehead in check is for commercial fisherman to begin fishing for them in earnest.  Given a decent market, if you set a short season, a small limit, and tight gear restrictions, and Maryland Watermen would fall over themselves to violate them and fish out every last one.

Eat Your Way to a Healthy Bay

John Odenkirk with a fresh Snakehead

'Frankenfish': It's What's For Dinner

...Now, fast-forward a decade. Carrie Kennedy, a fisheries scientist for Maryland's Department of Natural Resources, is getting married. Like most weddings, hers will have a buffet of chicken and fish.

"But the fish we're going to have is going to be snakehead," she says. Kennedy notes the fish is an invasive species. "We want it to go away, so we're trying to create a market," she says.

Their strategy may be working. Business in Maryland is almost booming.

"We got a couple hundred pounds yesterday, and all this fish will be gone this weekend," says John Rorapaugh of Profish, a wholesaler in Northeast Washington, D.C.  He's standing over crates of iced, giant snakeheads. The ravenous appetites of the fish are legendary. Rorapaugh and others have found batteries, mice, birds' feet and baby turtles in the bellies of the fish. "Anything that swims past them that's living, they'll eat," he says.

And the fish are delicious. "When you bite into it, it almost feels like it falls apart because it's so tender," Rorapaugh says.

But, as I suspected (despite my title), snakeheads are not proving to be the ecological nightmare that many envisioned:

John Odenkirk is a biologist with the Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries. He's standing on a boat on the Occoquan River, surveying the snakehead population by using an electric current in the water.
...
Odenkirk says it looks like the snakeheads aren't turning out to be the ecological disaster people feared.  "We still don't know. We don't have enough information to make that call yet and probably won't for several more years," he says, "but it does look like some of the initial hysteria was probably overstated — not probably, it was almost surely overstated."

Environmental hysteria is easy.  Proving harmful effects is much more difficult.