$200 bounty on snakehead fish in Maryland

[kurt]

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/maryland-offering-200-gift-cards-dead-snakehead-fish-163943568.html

the fact that these fish were set loose in there waters is an ecological disaster and sucks but a $200 basspro shop gift card per fish it would be a cool way to try to get some new toys if it was closer to me. the one guy in the article got 7 of the buggers i wonder what kinda toys he bought with that kinda scratch.

[philb]

Is electro-shock therapy for fish legal in MD?

[tomw]

Is electro-shock therapy for fish legal in MD?

The DNR has done that here in ponds and lakes to cull the rough fish out. Apparently, done right, it just knocks them out and they float to surface to be sorted. Pick up the rough fish and the others recover and supposedly go on as if nothing happened.

Tom

[Wolvenar]

Might be worth a trip out there ti fish :-)

[ChrisOlson]

All they have to do is come to Wisconsin and get some of our 5 foot tiger muskies and let 'em go in those lakes that got snakeheads.  Muskies eat anything that will fit in their mouth - ducks, snakes, muskrats, northerns, walleyes, bass, other muskies.  And snakeheads would make a nice snack for them too

Muskies are apex predators.  The hybrids (Tiger Muskies, which are a cross between a male northern pike and female muskellunge) are sterile but they grow 1.5x faster than purebred muskies, and all they do is eat.  A big tiger muskie attacked a little girl that was wading in shallow water at a resort on Nelson Lake a few years ago.  The muskie grabbed her by the leg and dragged her out to deep water.  The girl's dad managed to get her away from the fish but her leg was all tore up and needed surgery to fix it.

Another guy got one that bit onto his foot a few years back:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-69449032.html

We could actually use some of them snakeheads in our lakes here to provide food for the muskies so they leave the walleyes alone.

Northerns would eat them snakeheads too.  I had to search thru my photos to find this picture:



I caught this nice 10" crappie and when I was reeling in my fish this northern came out of the edge of a weedbed like a freaking torpedo and grabbed my crappie off my hook.  Northerns and muskies eat their prey head first, so when it grabbed my crappie it got snagged in the corner of the mouth by the hook.  Well, then the damn thing went under the boat and came out the other side.  My wife seen it and she had the net.  When I tried to get my line around the trolling motor the fish surfaced and she got it in the net.  The northern still had the crappie clamped firmly in its jaws and wouldn't let go of it.

I hate them frickin' northerns.  They slime the boat up when you get 'em in, and these big ones will bust everything all to hell in the boat by the time you get the hook out.
--
Chris

[Watt]

All they have to do is come to Wisconsin and get some of our 5 foot tiger muskies and let 'em go in those lakes that got snakeheads.  Muskies eat anything that will fit in their mouth - ducks, snakes, muskrats, northerns, walleyes, bass, other muskies.  And snakeheads would make a nice snack for them too

Muskies are apex predators.  The hybrids (Tiger Muskies, which are a cross between a male northern pike and female muskellunge) are sterile but they grow 1.5x faster than purebred muskies, and all they do is eat.  A big tiger muskie attacked a little girl that was wading in shallow water at a resort on Nelson Lake a few years ago.  The muskie grabbed her by the leg and dragged her out to deep water.  The girl's dad managed to get her away from the fish but her leg was all tore up and needed surgery to fix it.

Another guy got one that bit onto his foot a few years back:
http://www.highbeam.com/doc/1G1-69449032.html

We could actually use some of them snakeheads in our lakes here to provide food for the muskies so they leave the walleyes alone.

Northerns would eat them snakeheads too.  I had to search thru my photos to find this picture:

(Attachment Link)

I caught this nice 10" crappie and when I was reeling in my fish this northern came out of the edge of a weedbed like a freaking torpedo and grabbed my crappie off my hook.  Northerns and muskies eat their prey head first, so when it grabbed my crappie it got snagged in the corner of the mouth by the hook.  Well, then the damn thing went under the boat and came out the other side.  My wife seen it and she had the net.  When I tried to get my line around the trolling motor the fish surfaced and she got it in the net.  The northern still had the crappie clamped firmly in its jaws and wouldn't let go of it.

I hate them frickin' northerns.  They slime the boat up when you get 'em in, and these big ones will bust everything all to hell in the boat by the time you get the hook out.
--
Chris

Chris, what do them muskies taste like?  I ask because we have Carp around here and always turn our nose up to them when someone asks if we eat them.  Why hell no is my reply until, I made a trip to Nebraska and went to eat with some local folks there.  Well, we went a popular fish eatery in Omaha and what I noticed was Carp on the menu.  Lots of it and lots of different ways.  I yelled, not real loud but yet loud enough, ' Y'all eat CARP? '!  Yes, plenty of funny looks from the crowed place.  I had the Catfish on the menu.  Even when I tried the Carp from the buddy I was with, I was not impressed.  I think it was one of those life long Carp is bad things. 

Just wondering.

[Wolvenar]

I don't know if I can give you much of a review on the taste of muskies in my area but they are DAMNED fun to catch!
you can fight these things for hours on the biggest rod/line setup. A friend and I were out fishing little wolf lake in Cass Lake Mn once and they had one nice sized one bite. That fish drug a rather heavy 18' boat around the lake for nearly 20 min before we got it in the net. Neither of us had been rigged up for that kind of fish, really lucky to get it in.

[Watt]

I don't know if I can give you much of a review on the taste of muskies in my area but they are DAMNED fun to catch!
you can fight these things for hours on the biggest rod/line setup. A friend and I were out fishing little wolf lake in Cass Lake Mn once and they had one nice sized one bite. That fish drug a rather heavy 18' boat around the lake for nearly 20 min before we got it in the net. Neither of us had been rigged up for that kind of fish, really lucky to get it in.

We have a similar worthless fish to catch.  It is fun and a lot of work if rigged up right. 



And no, I have no idea how they taste.  We throw them up on the bank and let'm rot.

[RichHagen]

Around my parts, one of the big problems of the moment is the Asian carp.  They have been making their way up the Illinois river and are now near the entrance to Lake Michigan.  There have been a few lawsuits over stopping boat and barge traffic in an attempt to keep them out of the Great Lakes, and the Army Corp of Engineers has erected a few electric fences along the river in attempts to prevent their migration further north.  It may be in vain however, as DNA from the carp has been detected in the Lake already.  Here was a brief article on them from Time Magazine: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1962108,00.html
They're not the carnivores like the other invaders, but they'll out compete other game fish, and they have a habit of jumping up out of the water when a boat goes by, a few boaters have been literally hit by large flying fish.

[Wolvenar]

Rich, they are moving up the Mississippi river also, the DNA had been detected last year in the Twin Cities/Minneapolis  area.
This year someone (think it was a DNR employee) caught a live one.

These guys are *really* friggen dangerous to boaters, and literally kill everything else in a lake short of carnivorous fish like notherns and muskies by starving them, so it's not a trivial problem.

[ChrisOlson]

Muskies are prized game fish and the world record is one of the most coveted records in all of fresh water fishing.  We have long held the world record muskie, caught by Louie Spray on the Chippewa Flowage in 1940.  There was another one caught here in northern Wisconsin in 2009 that I believe is now the official world record.  We have the National Freshwater Fishing Hall of Fame here in Hayward, WI, and the museum itself is a big wood and cement tiger muskie
http://www.freshwater-fishing.org/index.php

The minimum size limit is 40".  They're just like a northern, but there's a few differences in them in markings and the number of "ports" on their gills - a muskie has five, a northern pike has seven.  Northerns are good to eat - a 36 incher will provide nice steaks for two for several meals.  The meat is white and flaky and excellent flavor - not oily and "fishy" tasting like a bass.

99% of the muskies that are caught are by accident, and very few are ever landed.  They're usually caught by somebody who is fishing panfish and the muskie grabs the panfish off their line.  The fish ultimately ends up breaking the line.

There's a few guys that fish them and they have tackle boxes that it takes a crane to lift into the boat.  Both muskies and northerns' optimum food size is another fish that's 1/3 their total body length.  So muskie plugs and lures are big.  And it takes big tackle to drag them thru the water.  If you're at the bait shop and you see the big 2 foot long Rapala for $60, it's not just for display.  That's a muskie lure.  And typically a $60 bait like that is good for catching one fish because when a muskie grabs it, it's junk.  They have incredibly powerful jaws and teeth.

Like Wolv said, a decent sized muskie will drag a big boat around the lake and it's usually more luck than skill in getting one in the boat because few people are equipped to handle them.
--
Chris

[ghurd]

There are tons of videos about those flying carp.  Frightening stuff.

I'd rather fish Pike in a decent place than Muskie anywhere.
To me, its a lot less boring to catch 20 or 50 Pike >3' a day, than one 3' Muskie a week.

Both me and the woman I am still married to caught many >4' Pike on 8~12lb line.  Took 45~75 minutes on average.
The last trip, I got one WELL into the 6' class area (measured in the water, "from this boat seat to that paint chip").  It would simply not fit in the 33" wide x 42" deep (?) net.  It was like trying to pick up a hotdog with a bottle cap.
Cut the leader at the mouth and let it go.... THEN realized she could have taken pics and video.  Dang!
Not sure.  She would remember.  Seems like it it hit a 3" yellow twister on a 5/8oz chartruse or white jig?  I know it was in a 'bay' about the size of a 3 car garage.

Locally, exporting carp to the UK is a big business.
G-

[ChrisOlson]

The North American world record northern recorded by the National Fresh Water Fishing Hall of Fame was caught in Lake Superior in 1979 and was 60 inches and 63 lbs 4 oz.

Northern Pike are very popular gamefish in my wife's home country of Sweden and they generally get bigger in Europe than they do in the US and Canada.  They don't call them "northerns" there - they're just "pike".  Fly fishing for them above the arctic circle in Swedish and Finnish Lapland is very popular.  My wife learned to fish for them as a young girl and she can filet the y-bones out of even a small 22" pike and not leave a single shred of meat on the skeleton.

If you like to fish big northerns visit the Ljusdals municipality in Sweden.  In Lake Tevsjon and the Ljusnans water system you can catch 20-25 per day that weigh over 30 lbs, on flies in the fall.  You generally have to fish for a week to catch one over 30 lbs in North America.

Edit:  I had to kind of laugh (but not really after I learned the real story):
The local KMart store here is going out of business.  So my wife went there and I swear she bought every fishing lure they had on the rack.  She came home with a big plastic bag FULL of fishing lures.  I (incorrectly) assumed she bought these lures for US.  So I was going thru it and I found several nice Rapala Countdown's in there, made in Ireland, and many other nice ones.  I was sort of picking out what I (thought) I could use when she suddenly informed me that if I want fishing lures I can buy my own.  Those in that bag are HERS.

It's like cripes - she got more fishing lures in that one bag than I got in both my tackle boxes.   
--
Chris

[rossw]

I was sort of picking out what I (thought) I could use when she suddenly informed me that if I want fishing lures I can buy my own.  Those in that bag are HERS.

How game do you feel?

Next time you're out, launch the boat, then as she's climbing in, politely ask where HER boat is, this one's YOURS??

[Watt]

I was sort of picking out what I (thought) I could use when she suddenly informed me that if I want fishing lures I can buy my own.  Those in that bag are HERS.

How game do you feel?

Next time you're out, launch the boat, then as she's climbing in, politely ask where HER boat is, this one's YOURS??

She then may point to something else and say " who does this belong to?"  I think I'd leave well enough alone.  ha ha