Snakehead Fish really is tasty!
- This topic has 20 replies, 9 voices, and was last updated Sep 13, 2013 at 5:42 pm by
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I’ve been hearing for years how delicious snakehead fish are, from very close to 100% of the people I know who have tried it. Well I just recently started pursuing them as a game fish (they fight like MAD! Crazy topwater fiends.) and was pretty skeptical about eating them. They are hideous, slimy creatures. And I don’t trust things to won’t die. Anyway, I wrote a blog post about preparing and eating it for the first time…
http://dispatchesfromthepotomac.com/2013/09/04/fried-snakehead-fish/
Great post Ed and they do look pretty tasty. I think they’re actually grown in aquaculture in Asia. And obviously we need to be killing as many of them as we can over here.
“Hideous, slimy creatures”? It’s not like they’re politicians or something. Their only sin is being somewhere they don’t belong, though no fault of their own. They’re spectacular predators… and yeah, they do taste good.
I think only the northerns are in aquaculture, or at least in wide use. Across much of rural SE Asia you can find locally-caught snakeheads in the markets, often including the pygmy snakehead and similar species. These things are cool fish with beautiful colors. Pygmies are stream-dwellers, behaving rather like our redeye bass do here in the southeast, and are very fun to fish for.
The Potomac fish are here to stay, and I’ve heard that the floods of the past couple of years may have allowed them to colonize some other Chesapeake tributaries. The Arkansas population is expanding pretty rapidly despite an expensive and largely ineffective eradication effort. I wouldn’t be surprised if they show up in MS and west TN soon.
The ditches that they were introduced into in eastern Arkansas actually offer some pretty amazing flyfishing opportunities. They’re shallow, mud-bottomed and without much cover. When the rice paddies aren’t pumping you can have clear enough water to sight fish. If you walk the levees and drop a fly near any overhanging grass or brush you’re likely to get blasted. There’s a few bowfin in some of the ditches, too. If you’re driving through or have an afternoon free after a morning duck hunt, it’s well worth a stop.
(photo above is of an Arkansas fish from a couple years back)
Dave –
I wasn’t aware they had been stocked in Arkansas. How did that happen? It sounds like they’re going to be in competition with Arkansas’s remaining population of gator gar in the St. Francis system pretty soon.
Zach
Hey Zach, they weren’t stocked by the state, but the story depends on who you believe. The official story is that a catfish farmer in the lower White River drainage (just outside of Brinkley) decided to diversify to target Asian-American markets. When told that he needed to destroy them, he drained his ponds without realizing that they would just slither over the berm into an adjacent ditch. An unofficial rumor suggests a bit more nefarious motives. I don’t think they’re going to compete with gator gar, but they might make a good prey item for the adults! There’s some cool work being done on gator gar in Arkansas right now — turns out they’re a bit more widespread than believed, and they sometimes spawn in much smaller streams than anyone suspected (essentially running up into flooded fields). There’s also an active restocking program (including a public lake right in the center of the northern snakehead introduction area) that’s showing great growth rates. The district biologist told me they’ve already seen some gargantuan fish, and they’ve only been in there a few years.
Word has it that they are showing up here and there in the Delaware river. (not as far up as the prime trout water yet though)
Dave-
Can you tell me where I can target those snake head in Arkansas. I talked to our local biologist he gave a general area but was not much help. I have heard the ditch around Lake Greenly. Also I have heard Piney Creek, but I have no idea where to access Piney Creek. I have a gheenoe that is a perfect set up for these little tight places. I want to put some of these on a green egg and see how they taste. I am headed to Little Rock Tuesday or Wednesday and would love to do some exploring and get an idea of where I can go to put my boat in next weekend.
When the going gets tough, the tough go fishing.
Billy, check your PMs.
Most of the ag ditches are pretty small for a boat, but the main channel ditches and the creek a bit downstream might not be bad… The specimen in the photo above was from a ditch immediately adjacent to Greenlee, so you’re on the right track.
There is nothing in my inbox. I will check out some of these ditches. Sounds like the next flooded spring we have is going to really spread these things. I am curious as to whether or not they are as destructive to the eco system as has been thought. I also wonder if they can survive and thrive in cold water thereby becoming a threat to out trout population.
When the going gets tough, the tough go fishing.
Dave I sent you a PM. I get an alert that I have a message but there is no message there. I sent you my email address to send it to. I am very eager to get into some snake heads.
When the going gets tough, the tough go fishing.
I am curious as to whether or not they are as destructive to the eco system as has been thought. I also wonder if they can survive and thrive in cold water thereby becoming a threat to out trout population.
At an outdoor writers association convention last year a talk was given by the Virginia biologist Odenkirk, my apologies to him I don’t remember his first name. John, maybe? Anyway, he has been studying these fish for ten years here. It seems from listening to him that while they have to be consuming just MASSIVE amounts of food, the electroshock surveys aren’t finding decreased numbers of bass and other fish in the waters shared with snakehead. That doesn’t seem to be well understood, but I would not be surprised in a few years for Virginia to back off of their strong suggestion to kill every one encountered policy.
As for cold water survival, these fish survive winter in warm water fisheries. So that water in Virginia can get very cold. Oddly, I haven’t heard much talk about what happens when they ‘invade’ trout waters, but it’s a fair point worth quite a bit of discussion and study.
They seem to be more perfectly suited in the climate and habitat here than in their native Asia, just highly successful very quickly. I am not convinced they need to be eradicated but I sure as hell would have no idea how you would eradicate them if you had to. Stink bugs come to mind. They’re just here now.
I am heading to Little Rock on Wednesday and on my way back to Memphis I am going to stop in Brinkly and see if I can catch one of these things.
When the going gets tough, the tough go fishing.
Holy crap, Jay! What do you know about that photograph??!
I just image searched “snakehead” and that monster from my nightmares emerged. That thing looks like it would eat your soul.
Slimy is an understatement. I’ve spent the last 9 years obsessed with them on the Potomac. I can answer any questions.
Except how to regularly catch them. That no one has figured out. Its been over a year since we netted one and I have not had a visual on one since May.
Ed, You have to come out to the tourney next year!
This is my biggest at 34″
Rob-
That is a nice one! What do you use to catch one like that?
When the going gets tough, the tough go fishing.
Billy,
That one took a stonefly nymph when I was fishing for carp. Considering they’ll eat Styrofoam and batteries, I’m not surprised by its choice that day.
Out west we have burbot that are similar and I understand they are just as tasty. They were also introduced and are considered an invasive species.
Kelly
The burbot is edible. In Finland, its roe is sold as caviar. There is an annual spearfishing tournament held near Roblin, Manitoba, Canada. One of the highlights of the tournament is the fish-fry where the day’s catch is served up deep-fried. When cooked, burbot meat tastes very similar to American lobster, leading to the burbot’s nickname of “poor man’s lobster.”
This came from Wikipedia. We need some more of these things! 🙂
When the going gets tough, the tough go fishing.
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