Adventures of an Urban Angler

Christopher Moore, E-mail: mootopher@gmail.com

There’s not much finesse involved. Leave your dry flies at home, and try not to think in terms like pocket water or drift. When you’re hunting snakeheads in a shallow, urbanized stream, it helps to cover a lot of ground quickly. This means walking up and down the streambank looking for that bullet-shaped body. You can’t miss it in water that’s only a couple feet deep. The Northern Snakehead Channa argus was discovered in a pond in eastern Maryland back in 2002. Since then, it has spread to most of our major rivers—even showing up in the Chesapeake Bay after periods of heavy rain have altered the salinity in its favor. The lower Potomac River has an especially robust population, and in the summer, they are on the move. Adults will look for shallow, grassy margins to shelter their newly hatched fry. Snakeheads are great parents—no doubt one reason for their phenomenal expansion—but this also makes them easy targets. Just look for your loudest, ugliest, most obnoxious looking bass fly and have at it! It helps to focus on undercut banks or areas with overhanging vegetation or woody debris. I spotted one patrolling the slack water under a bridge spanning the Northeast Branch of the Anacostia River.

A popular jogging trail runs adjacent to the Northeast Branch, and the “snake monster” fish always brings a crowd. There is no catch and release permitted, but before dispatching it, I took the opportunity to demonstrate how this species cannot crawl over land, as had been mistakenly reported in the media. In fact, despite their fearsome appearance, the Northern Snakehead is reputed to be a tasty fish (gasp!), second only to Walleye Sander vitreus or Yellow Perch Perca flavescens for its mild flavor. I had reservations about eating this one, however, because of where it was caught; the Anacostia, unfortunately, is one of our nation’s most polluted rivers. Speaking of eating, in the initial frenzy following the discovery of the Northern Snakehead in Maryland, people expressed concern for their pets and young children. To date, no cats or kindergartners have turned up while analyzing stomach contents; instead, Banded Killifish Fundulus diaphanus and Bluegill Lepomis macrochirus are two of the species most often reported. One angler I encountered showed me his cooler with five or six snakeheads, all between two- and three-feet-long, caught with small sunfish he’d collected earlier that day. But even if a rogue fish developed a craving for human flesh, it would have a hard time leaving the water. C. argus is not flattened ventrally, and this makes “crawling” out of the question. Confusion on this point is understandable, however. Of the 29 species of snakehead found throughout Asia and tropical Africa, several are in fact capable of overland migration. Presumably this sort of adaptive behavior is advantageous in periods of drought or in areas with ephemeral stream channels. That being said, flood conditions are thought to contribute to the spread of C. argus in local waters. You won’t find it lurking in the shrubbery waiting to ambush the neighbor’s house cat, but you might find it in a drainage ditch or in a flooded field after periods of heavy rain. Our own newly resident species, the Northern Snakehead, also benefits in other ways from its interesting physiology. Like gar, all snakeheads are obligate air breathers. This makes them tolerant of warm, shallow, hypoxic water—summertime conditions— in other words, many of our urbanized stream systems. The Channidae are by and large a tropical or subtropical family of fishes. Lucky for us, the Northern Snakehead is the one species within the genus/family that can survive over-wintering in a temperate climate. Other species (e.g., C. micropeltes, the Giant Snakehead) have also been collected in area waters and throughout the northeastern United States but are thought to be incapable of establishing viable populations. It is through human agency, of course, that these fish have been found so far from their native range. Aquarium releases pose a problem as do fish imported or captive bred for use in the live-food fish trade. Nevertheless, in a silver lining of sorts, the Northern Snakehead has reawakened an interest in the health of the Anacostia River and its watershed. Snakehead stories in the news are almost invariably packaged as “yet one more problem” for the river and its inhabitants. But it’s hard to think of a fish with more sex appeal, and this has people returning to the river. Historically, the Anacostia and its tributaries boasted huge runs of shad and herring. My ramblings throughout the watershed can attest to this; in exposed areas of the stream channel, I’ve found Native American net weights as well as nineteenth century lumps of cast iron used for the same purpose. Since then, the usual march of progress has turned what was once a river with an active floodplain into something resembling, in places, an enormous ditch. But it’s a ditch with an exotic fish, and I’m always pleasantly surprised to find folks fishing. Growing up in North Carolina, I never really had the chance to tangle with too many esocids, other than Chain Pickerel Esox niger. Down south, it can seem like the Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides is the only gospel in town. Both fish will hit hard, but in my experience it’s over after a couple of short runs. The Northern Snakehead is different. If I had to compare it to some other species, I’d have to go with gar. A big Longnose Gar Lepisosteus osseus will fight you up and down the water column and then trash the boat for kicks. Common Carp Cyprinus carpio come to mind as well. This statement is tasteless (pun intended) and offensive—please no hate mail—but give a big carp room to run, and it’s on! Ask none other than the great Lefty Kreh himself. In his autobiography My Life Was This Big, Kreh calls the carp “one of the strongest and most challenging freshwater fish out there.” Big carp and snakeheads are cautious fish, and successful pursuit of either species requires planning and stealth. Sometimes it seems more like hunting than fishing. The Northern Snakehead is probably here to stay, and interagency efforts are underway to monitor the species and track its expansion in the Potomac River basin. To its credit, Maryland Department of Natural Resources has done a great job getting the word out about this invasive fish. As of this writing, it has not been found above Great Falls—the fall line on the Potomac River—and officials are hoping to keep it that way. With that in mind, it is hoped that the angling community can play the role of apex predator and suppress the fish’s population growth. I met one family who traveled from over 90 minutes away for a chance to catch the fish. Keep in mind folks, this is not the beautiful Blackfoot River of A River Runs Through It. This is the Anacostia. And that’s worth thinking about. For further reading on the Northern Snakehead or snakeheads in general, the interested reader is encouraged to consult the following sources: fl.biology.usgs.gov/Snakehead_circ_1251/circ_1251_courtenay.pdf fws.gov/northeast/marylandfisheries/projects/Northern%20Snakehead. html midatlanticpanel.org/resources/publications/Northern_Snakehead.pdf nas.er.usgs.gov/taxgroup/fish/northernsnakeheaddistribution.aspx