Snakeheads: Part One

It was only a matter of time until my attention was turned to snakeheads. Turned, it has. A few days ago I saw some news bulletins about a snakehead having been caught for the first time only a week prior at Mason Neck State Park, on the Potomac River.

I heard about the fish at about 1 am on Thursday morning. Less than 12 hours later I was packed, in the car, and on my way to the Potomac.

The first place I stopped was at another park a few miles away. Pohick Bay Park is also on the Potomac and it offers campsites (unlike Mason Neck, which closes at 9 pm). I pulled in, made camp, and started asking everyone in sight about snakeheads. The guy at the camp store, strangers at boat landings. It turns out that people have been pulling snakeheads out of this stretch of the Potomac river pretty regularly. They just either aren't reporting them to DGIF or the data isn't being posted.

Fishing from the shore at Pohick Bay was pointless and frustrating. Masses of weeds near the shore make every retrieve a chore and every structure that could get someone out into the water has a 'no fishing' sign.

After a rough night in my tent trying to sleep through 100 degree heat I woke to find that raccoons had stolen my crab traps. Wonderful. Crabbing was right out for the rest of the trip.

I moved on to Mason Neck, paid my $4 entry fee and parked. I flagged down the first person I saw to ask about snakeheads. That someone happened to be T.C. Smith, head ranger at the park.

It turned out that I had hit paydirt. Big time. T.C. directed me towards a pond only a few hundred yards away that he promised was loaded with snakeheads. He told me that at least six had been taken out of that one pond so far this year. I was amazed to hear that he'd informed DGIF of the situation and they declined to do anything about it.

Worse, they had put a juvenile snakehead caught from the pond into an aquarium in the park's nature center and had their permit for it declined by DGIF. The Department of Game and Inland Fisheries refused to send someone in to electroshock the invasive fish out of a small pond loaded with them, but when the park wanted to use a single fish to educate the public about the dangers of snakeheads then DGIF decided to stop them. I find this to be completely outrageous. I have long been a fan of DGIF in general but this is really a sad disappointment. Not only are they failing to stop a dangerous invasive species but they appear to be subverting the park's education efforts. If they really think that it is so dangerous to have a single snakehead in an aquarium at an educational facility, then perhaps they should try doing something about the large numbers sitting there in the wild in a pond less than 300 yards away.

T.C. advised me that a top water lure would be a smart idea, given the amount of weeds to deal with in the pond. Taking his advice, I tied on the only really good top water lure that I had with me.

On the very first cast with my regular bass rig (a cheap Water Eagle reel on a six foot Ugly Stik) a fish nailed the lure within a second of it hitting the water. It rose to the surface as I pulled it in and I saw that beyond a doubt this was a big snakehead. It fought harder than any freshwater fish that I have ever hooked in my life. As I hauled it in I began to have doubts about the ability of my straining reel to do the job. Suddenly, the fish turned on the ten pound test line, bit clean through it, and disappeared with the lure.

I stared at the sad broken end of line that waved in the slight breeze and realized that I was outgunned.

Right away I walked back to my car to see what else I had on hand. The only tougher other option was my surf rig, a Shimano 4000 on an eight foot two-piece Ugly Stik (I have to keep my rods short, on account of needing to drive all over the United States with my gear stuffed into a compact Ford ZX2 coupe) loaded up with 18 pound test line.

I had driven out there expecting to be fishing in the river, so I didn't have many weed-busting top water lures on hand. In fact, my only one was currently stuck in a very big fish's mouth somewhere in that pond.

Long story short, I didn't hook any more fish that day, although I did see a lot more snakeheads cruising near the surface.

As I drove home I pondered what might be the ideal rig for pond snakeheads. My thinking right now is that I need a relatively short, medium-action rod coupled with a mid-range reel, loaded with 10 pound test line or better; using steel leaders and top-water lures. Heavy emphasis on the steel leaders.

I spent a lot of time back home watching videos on Youtube of snakeheads feeding in aquariums. The speed with which they usually attack is incredible. After watching a lot of videos and after observing the fish in the wild, I have some observations that will hopefully make it easier to catch them.

1. Snakeheads will attack very large prey, including fish as large as themselves. This is not like a largemouth bass, which sizes up prey on the basis of whether it can swallow it. Largemouths don't have teeth, while snakeheads do. A snakehead will grab onto a target and twist chunks off, almost like an alligator. Usually it tends to start with the back end. Because of this, very large lures could be used. But those lures also need to be very tough in order to hold up to the kind of abuse that these fish are capable of dishing out.

2. These fish are very wary and pay close attention to what is happening above the surface. Cast nets are out of the question (T.C. told me that they had tried them). Stalking is important. Stay quiet and mind where your shadow falls. Your first cast is probably the most important one. Snakeheads get spooked pretty quickly. Fish in one area for ten or fifteen minutes and then hang back for a while before returning.

3. Snakeheads tend to decide instantly whether or not to strike, and then they lunge hard. Their bodies are built to accelerate very rapidly for a short distance. Then they get winded fast.

While most snakeheads in North America are probably caught as a matter of chance by bass fishermen, we must not approach this species as if they were largemouth bass on steroids. Rarely have I seen a pond containing no fish but largemouth bass. Largemouths get along well with other fish and form a sustainable ecosystem with them. This pond, only a few yards from the Potomac River, contained absolutely nothing in the water column that I could divine over a full day of observation but snakeheads and turtles.

I am returning to Mason Neck in a few days with a purpose built snakehead rig and a tackle box loaded with appropriate lures, including a few that I am constructing myself specifically with snakeheads in mind. Come hell or high water, I'm clearing that pond out of as many invaders as I can possibly find and eat.

[Photo copyright 2011 by Jackson Landers. Taken on the Potomac at dawn a few days ago.]

How to Move Beyond Sunfish

My new year's resolution this year was to be a better fisherman. I really feel that I've been meeting that goal, though I still have a long way to go.

I first learned how to catch fish when I was around seven years old. My uncle Mike took my brother and I out after sunfish and bass on Silver Lake in Wilmington, Massachusetts. I caught a sunny and my brother caught a 10 inch bass, which we cooked that afternoon.

After that I could pull in little bullheads on a certain pond while visiting relatives in Massachusetts in the summer time, but otherwise my fishing career was limited to sunfish and bluegills for a very long time. Most people never move beyond catching sunnies off of a dock and I might very well have become one of them. My father would take my brother and I fishing periodically and this usually consisted of tossing out worms on Zebco 202 combos. After a while, the idea of catching anything bigger or different became abstract and foreign. There were only sunfish. Still, I was pretty happy.

As a teenager I learned how to really hunt for largemouth bass in a pond behind our house after we moved to Virginia. However, I had no idea what these fish were even called. They were big silvery things that I had to stalk up to along the bank, keeping my steps light and my shadow off of the water. They were good to eat. I knew nothing about spinning rods or how to select the right lure or hooks. I kept using the same little Mepps soft rubber lures that I had sent $2 off in the mail for when I was 10 years old. I still have one of those lures, by the way.

In retrospect, I lost a lot of big fish because I was using undersized hooks.

Over the last few years I've really tried to up my game and become a real four season fisherman who can bring home many different species to put on the table, using a variety of means of take. This year is when everything finally clicked.

I don't hold myself out to be some type of expert fisherman, by the way. I still have a lot to learn. But when I go out fishing in a spot that I know well, as often as not I come home with dinner. There are a few things that have really helped me out this year that I'm going to share with any new or lapsed fishermen reading this. So many of us started out catching sunnies off of a dock and never moved beyond that and I want you to know that it isn't that hard.

1. Study the fish. Whatever species you want to catch, read about its whole life cycle and what motivates it throughout the year. How does it respond to changes in temperature, barometric pressure, underwater structure and food sources? Yes, equipment is important and the magazines are full of information about gear. But understanding your prey should always come first. Someone who knows the fish can still catch them on $20 worth of tackle, while a guy who didn't know anything except how to plunk down $500 for a state-of-the-art set-up probably won't catch anything.

2. If something isn't working, change it. Don't cast the same lure 100 times in a row if you aren't getting a single bite. Try something different. Sometimes the fish won't touch a spinner but will jump straight on a rubber worm. Other days its the opposite. Carry a variety of lures with you and change them out when things aren't working.

3. Don't be afraid to get snagged. Casting into open, unobstructed water is easy but isn't always where the fish are. In hot weather they want shade, just like you do. Some predators like largemouth bass will sometimes hang out under overhanging trees waiting for insects to fall off and hit the water. Crappie like to hang out in schools around submerged trees. The same stuff that catches your hook and line so easily also tends to attract fish. If you aren't risking snags much when fishing freshwater then you probably aren't doing it right.

4. Get interested in the fish that are there. So maybe you have a lake full of carp that other fishermen aren't interested in. Or a river full of redhorse suckers. Well, as much as I love to catch largemouth bass and as much as many people love to catch muskies, most fish are good to eat and fun to catch once you learn how. There are a lot of fishermen out there who know a lot about how to catch one particular species but their opinions on anything else should be totally ignored. Don't ever let anyone tell you that carp, bullheads, suckers, or any other fish is bad to eat or not worth trying to catch. Nine times out of ten, the guy who tells you that has never actually eaten the species in question. Cook it yourself, and then judge.

By the way, I still love to catch sunfish. This very afternoon I caught three largemouth bass, one of which measured an honest 16 inches. The pair of hand-sized sunnies that I caught and kept for dinner fought almost as well and will taste just as good. I will never be too proud to catch sunfish off of a dock, even if I have moved beyond the old Zebco 202.

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In case anyone is wondering, my basic freshwater bass set-up consists of a Shakespeare 'Ugly Stik' rod paired with an Eagle Claw brand 'Water Eagle' reel. The Water Eagle reel is nothing special and probably won't last through another season. But as cheap reels go, the Water Eagle reel has held up better than most others in its price range have for me. Shakespeare's Ugly Stiks are good rods for the money but the reels that come with their combos are junk. Pairing an Ugly Stik rod with another brand of reel is a good way to go on a low budget.

[Photo copyright 2011 by Jackson Landers. All rights reserved. This is an 18 inch bass caught by my friend Fergus Clare, who is holding it.]

How to Choose and Use a Cast Net

I just realized that I really should have explained a little bit more about cast nets in those last few blog entries.

A cast net is a net that is thrown, or 'cast' directly on top of the fish you are after. This is different from a dip net and other types of nets with specialized uses.

Cast nets have weights along the edges which serve two purposes. First, the weights help to spread the net out by centripetal force as it is thrown. It is very important that the net spread out and hit the water as wide and flat as possible. Secondly, the weights help the net to sink quickly. If the net takes too long to sink then the fish will have time to swim out from under it.

Once the net sinks on top of any fish underneath it, the weights hold the net down and trap the fish inside. As you pull the net back to the surface the weights pull the net closed and tight so that the fish do not escape.

You can use a cast net either on fish that are visible or in a spot where you think fish are likely to be. It can work quite well even for benthic fishes that hang out on the bottom.

Cast nets come in various sizes starting at around four feet in diameter on up. A smaller net is easier to learn how to throw properly and is a good choice for a beginner. The downside of a smaller net is that a fish has decent odds of swimming out of its path, especially in deeper water. A wider net catches more fish.

Tossing a net tends to make some noise and stir up the water so you usually won't want to throw a net in the same place for long. The fish get spooked off. Throw a few times and then move on, giving it at least twenty minutes or so until hitting the same spot again.

The net I've been using is pretty similar to this four-footer, which costs less than $30. I've grown to appreciate this thing a lot lately, in particular once I realized that the mortality rate among fish that I throw back is probably close to zero. No hooks, no injuries. This isn't something that many people would use for sport, but if you just want to catch dinner in a hurry then a cast net is a smart item to buy.

A Floridian Invasive Safari

Looking to knock out a few more species as my deadline for completing 'Eating Aliens' approaches, I made a trip back down to Gasparilla Island, Florida, to hunt with my friend George Cera. George specializes in hunting invasive reptiles but this time our quarry was three species of fish, plus muscovy ducks. We ended up running out of time before we could bag any ducks but we went three for three in the fish department. Plecos, armored catfish and tilapia.

This was a little different from most fishing I've done before because we used cast nets almost exclusively. By the end of the trip I felt like I'd gotten to be a fair hand at throwing a four-footer, although I'm awful at using George's eight-foot net.

I stayed in a fantastic cottage at the Gasparilla Innlet. Off-season in the summer the crowds are thin and rooms are easy to get, but the fishing and scenery are still great. If you get down there right now you'll find that the mangoes are still ripe.

On my last day George and I cruised around in his golf cart hunting black spiny-tailed iguanas. I'd already bagged these for the book last year but I really wanted some meat to bring home. Last year George was exclusively using a .177 pellet rifle to shoot iguanas but now he has started using a Henry .22 rifle loaded with CCI birdshot capsules in some situations. The bird shot is less likely to cause property damage to any structures immediately behind the iguana.

[All photos copyright 2011 by Jackson Landers. All rights reserved.]

Eating Plecos

I was really into fresh water aquariums for a few years. I started out with mid-sized community tanks before coming to specialize in 'natural aquariums' that didn't require any pumps or filters. Some of my tanks included Hypostomus plecostomus, more commonly known as a 'pleco,' or as a 'sucker.'

Plecos are great in aquariums because they eat algae off of nearly any surface and help to keep the tank clean. The one problem with them in aquariums is that over a few years they tend to get rather bigger than most people are equipped to deal with. Lengths of two feet are common and four footers are not unheard of.

Of course, few people have ever seen one longer than 12 inches because they put a stop to it right there. Either they trade it in to a pet store, euthanize it, or release it into a handy body of water.

For the love of all that is holy, do not take the third option. People in central Florida did and now the fish have rapidly reproduced and become a serious invasive problem.

I write this from a cottage at the Gasparilla Innlet on an island on the Gulf coast of Florida. I spent the day with my friend, George Cera, stalking invasive fish on the mainland with a cast net and a camera.

The use of a cast net is rarely seen among fresh water fishermen in the US. While casting a net is different from that involved in catching fish with a hook and line, I can attest that it takes practice and skill. Larger nets are harder to throw properly. I rarely managed to throw an eight foot net properly, but I've got the knack of it with my four foot net.

We used nets because the three invasive fish on our list are all herbivores that do not readily take lures or bait. Armored catfish, tilapia and plecos. All native fish caught in the net were released. Having knocked out the armored catfish yesterday (dealing with a lot of alligators along the way, which I won't get into here but it will all be detailed in my next book, 'Eating Aliens') we moved on to plecos and tilapia today.

I confess that it felt strange and a little bit wrong when I untangled the medium-sized pleco from my net and dropped it into the waiting cooler. I'd kept these things as pets and while they didn't exactly carry my slippers around I had come to think of them in a decidedly domestic way.

We cooked the pleco and a wild tilapia at George's house a few hours ago. Most readers have probably eaten tilapia and have some idea of what it tastes like. With that as a baseline we cooked the tilapia and the pleco according to identical recipes for a side-by-side comparison according to the recipe that follows. The only difference in preparation is that the tilapia was gutted, scaled and then cooked whole while the pleco was gutted and then sliced in half with a diagonal cut on account of there being next to no meat in the front half. Plecos have large, tough scutes instead of regular scales and there is no sense in trying to scale them. Better to pull the skin and scutes off after cooking.

Mango Pleco


Ingredients:



1 or more plecos, gutted and sliced along the belly towards the end of the tail.

1 ripe mango

Salt

Pepper



Place the fish on a piece of aluminum foil. Shred the mango and stuff the interior of the fish with the fruit. Drizzle the mango juice all over the fish. Salt and pepper to taste. Wrap and seal the aluminum foil and bake at 350 degrees F until fully cooked. Time will vary depending on the size of the fish. Check it after 25 minutes and then see if it needs to cook longer.

We used mango because George is fortunate enough to have three different varieties of mango growing in his back yard and dropping fruit everywhere. George was deeply skeptical of the whole idea of eating pleco. From the moment I hauled it out of the water he didn't want to even discuss eating it. In fact he required that I prepare the pleco in a separate container from the tilapia because he didn't want the tilapia he intended to eat to be tainted by the vile pleco.

When both fish finally came out of the oven they looked and smelled like food instead of just the weird dead things that they had previously been. I handed George a fork and suggested that he try some.

Slowly, apprehensively, he placed a fork-full of pleco into his mouth. And he liked it. He really liked it. Then I tried some and I liked it, too. And then we ate some of the tilapia, which had been prepared and cooked identically (and was, if anything, slightly fresher having been caught last).

We both liked the taste and texture of the pleco more than we did the tilapia. The pleco had started out looking like dark meat when we'd gutted and prepped it but by the time it came out of the oven it was white and flaky. It had a firmer texture and a cleaner flavor than the tilapia.

Obviously I am an advocate for fishing, killing, and eating tilapia from Florida's waters on account of them being an invasive species there. And the tilpia really tasted very good. But I did not expect in my wildest dreams to enjoy eating plecos more than tilapia. The plecos were, in all honesty, an after-thought. In fact, I didn't even realize that they were here until a few days ago. I came down here to catch tilapia. But the pleco wins, hands down.

Plecos taste very good. They are absolutely an edible fish and are worth pursuing and using as food. This recipe that I tested it with contained no strong-tasting ingredients. No garlic or peppers to mask any off flavors. Just a little mango to wrap around the flavor of the fish. Pleco tastes superb.

[Photo copyright 2011 by Jackson Landers. All rights reserved. Please ask for permission to use it with attribution and permission will probably be granted]

Hail, Hail, Rock & Roll

The New York Times has a piece today about eating invasive species. Many people have been emailing me links to this expressing minor outrage at the fact that the article does not mention me or my work.

Well, lets look at it this way; there eventually came a point where it was no longer necessary to mention Chuck Berry in every article about rock and roll. This is a good thing. My goal with the Eating Aliens project, book and perhaps TV show has been to create a cultural shift in favor of hunting and eating invasive species. I don't want the whole movement to be just about me. The fact that so many people are now accepting and practicing this concept means that the goal is succeeding and that there is plenty to say about it without talking about my work.

This is a good thing all around. I just hope they'll come back and talk when the book launches.

[Photograph copyright 2010 by Jackson Landers. All rights reserved.]

Utah!

This Friday I'm off to Snowbird, Utah to speak at the annual conference of the Outdoor Writer's Association of America on a panel with Hank Shaw. Hank's recent book, 'Hunt Fish Cook', was borne out of much the same spirit as the books, classes, workshops and other events I've been doing over the last few years.

I've never been to Utah before and I'm not quite sure what to expect. Snowbird looks like a nice place, though not quite my style. When I hit the road I'm usually more likely to find myself bivvied in a shack, tent or my pop-up trailer in close proximity to water with good fishing and some kind of hunting. I left that world of resorts, room service and air conditioning behind a long time ago, though it might be nice to re-visit it.

When I return from Utah, I'm trying to manage a quick trip to West Virginia to hunt feral goats followed by a run down to Florida for a few days to bag invasive muscovy ducks and tilapia. Maybe snakeheads as well.

Its crunch time. I have to have 'Eating Aliens' handed in to my publisher by the end of August, and assuming 3 or 4 weeks of straight writing I've got to have all of the travel completed by the first week of August. Is this even physically possible? Especially on a remaining budget of only a few thousand dollars? Time will tell.

Is there anyone out there who can help get me on to some snakehead fish, either in Florida or elsewhere in North America? If so, please shoot me an email at jack.landers@gmail.com

By the way, its prime blackberry season. Go get picking!

[Photo copyright 2011 by Jackson Landers. All rights reserved]