Ed Felker
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These are fantastic!! I love seeing these when I go to Montana. Last time I was there, in fact, Joel grilled up some fresh antelope the first night I arrived! It all felt very Western. 🙂
Great photos, guys. As always.
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.
My wife and I were fishing with a guide in Montana a while back and he told a story about a couple he had on his boat once. The woman, all geared up with waders, net, etc. had gone into the woods to take care of business. When she got back to the boat one whiff made it obvious to guide and husband both that something was very, very wrong. Turns out she had somehow pooped in her net that was hanging on her back! Wow. Hard to recover from that and have a relaxing day of fishing, huh.
