The big blue menace – not Democrats, but catfish, 2 Virginia GOP legislators say

The blue catfish problem struck residence for state Sen. Richard Stuart, R-King George, when he took certainly one of his son’s highschool mates to a favourite rockfish (striped bass) sizzling spot – an underwater sand bar by the mouth of Machodoc creek.

“I’ve been fishing that bar all my life for rockfish,” he stated. “However we no sooner put strains within the water after we hooked two 10-pound catfish. That’s unparalleled, catfish are backside feeders, they don’t get that huge.”

However an invasive variation, the blue catfish, does.

 “They’re predators; they eat every thing, crabs, perch child, rockfish. We have been fishing bucktails, what you utilize for rockfish and so they eat that,” Stuart stated. 

Fishermen have reported discovering birds and muskrats in catfish stomachs.

 As they anxious about all of the crabs, striped bass and different fish the blues gobble up, Stuart and Del. Keith Hodges, R-Middlesex, assume they’ve discovered a option to take care of the invasion. 

And all because of the blue catfish’s urge for food.

“We will eat our manner out of the issue,” stated Hodges, who like Stuart grew up fishing alongside the Chesapeake’s Western Shore, the place final 12 months, a fisherman caught a 68-plus pound blue catfish not removed from Hodges’ Urbanna hometown.

The 2 Western Shore legislators have proposed a grant program by means of one thing they’re calling the Governor’s Blue Catfish Industries Improvement Fund. They’ve additionally put in price range amendments to launch this system with $4 million of state funds.

The concept is to advertise a business fishery so as to add blue catfish to the crabs, oysters, clams and menhaden which might be the Bay’s present mainstay fisheries with grants to native governments and for flash-freezing the fish.  

“They really style fairly good,” Hodges stated. “Not the large ones” – a weight loss plan of muskrat doesn’t translate into good consuming – “however as much as 10 kilos they’re not unhealthy.”

He envisions a fishery that would, as an example, help a processing plant at state prisons, which may then provide Virginia colleges, faculties, hospitals and prisons with a wholesome supply of cheap protein.

“It may even be a price range financial savings,” he stated.

A 4-ounce serving of blue catfish consists of 19 grams of protein, with solely 90 energy and 1.5 grams of fats. 

The Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal fisheries company, notes that some individuals say the blue catfish style like striped bass.

Hodges says blue catfish have been devastating to the hard-pressed striped bass inhabitants, a favourite sport fish, because the catfish are significantly keen on juveniles.

Additionally they gorge on younger menhaden, the “penny bunkers” Stuart remembers catching and chucking again within the water as a child. Virginia’s menhaden fishery, one of many largest within the nation, is commonly blamed for the decline of striped bass, which the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Fee says is overfished.

Virginia’s wildlife division launched the blue catfish many years in the past, with the thought of increasing the freshwater fish leisure fisherman can catch.

They’re natives of the Mississippi, Ohio and Missouri rivers.

Satirically, the blue catfish has practically disappeared from the Mississippi River north of St. Louis, Missouri’s Division of Conservation stories.

However because the apex predator in Virginia waters, its inhabitants has exploded since state officers launched it to the James, Rappahannock, and York river basins in Virginia 4 many years in the past – a 10-pound fish can produce greater than 20,000 eggs.

“They’re transferring into brackish and salt water now,” Hodges stated, and as blue catfish are huge eaters and prolific reproducers with no predators he’s anxious.

“They’re the most important menace to the Bay now,” he stated.