Snakeheads

[ErikNJD]

Originally Posted by Ol Pedro

Snake heads, snake heads, yummy, yummy snake heads. Snake heads snake heads eat um up yum ! Seeing how they are so successful at breeding and protecting their young I say eat um all ! Anyone have a good Snake head spot around New Egypt / Jackson area?

Crosswicks Creek in New Egypt area has been producing lately.

[Ol Pedro]

Thanks, I will hit below the spill way in town when Grandson is back. Might try the beaver pond off 528/Colliersmills.

[AndyS]

Salem canal is ground zero.

[Lard Almighty]

Originally Posted by AndyS

I don't need ANY PROOF. The Snakeheads are INVASIVE bottom line.

Andy, I can't believe you could so blindly believe anything that F&W says. After all, they won't even stock trout in the lower Raritan, so they CLEARLY have no idea what they're doing.

[AndyS]

My guide on the Upper Delaware who fishes for trout in the cooler months and smallmouth in the summer months has been posting less and less fish photos lately. He is posting bald eagle and river photos, I wonder why that is, coincidence ??

[acabtp]

Originally Posted by ErikNJD

Guys you dont have to kill anything. The only thing you have to do is release them back into the same water you caught it in. They cant force you to kill something. All fish were safely released since I did not want to keep any. The negativity around them is bs and the little studies on them show that. They should be embraced not treated like villains

yeah, so... you are 100% totally incorrect about the law in NJ. none of the states around here have that "back into the same water you caught it from" provision for snakeheads... i think that's a FL thing? anyway, here in NJ, including salem county where you caught the fish, it is prohibited to release alive any species listed on the aquatic invasive species management plan as a potentially dangerous species. your release of snakeheads alive anywhere in NJ, including back into the water they came from, was unlawful.

please see https://dep.nj.gov/wp-content/upload...ement-plan.pdf and https://dep.nj.gov/njfw/fishing/fres...asive-species/ for more information

N.J. Admin Code. § Section 7:25-6.1(g) states “The possession and/or release of live potentially
dangerous fish species, identified in N.J.A.C. 7:25-6.2, is strictly prohibited. Potentially
dangerous fish species encountered while angling shall be destroyed. There are no season,
minimum size or creel limits on these species.”

7:25-6.2...
"Potentially dangerous fish" means the following species:
1. Asian Swamp Eel Monopterus albus
2. Bighead Carp Hypophthalmichthys nobilis
3. Black Bass species other than Micropterus spp. other than M.
Largemouth Bass and Smallmouth Bass salmoides and M. dolomieu
4. Blue Catfish Ictalurus furcatus
5. Brook Stickleback Culaea inconstans
6. Flathead Catfish Pylodictis olivaris
7. Grass Carp (diploid) Ctenopharyngodon idella
8. Green Sunfish Lepomis cyanellus
9. Oriental Weatherfish Misgurnus anguillicaudatus
10. Round Goby Neogobius melanostomus
11. Snakeheads Channa spp.
12. Silver Carp Hypophthalmichthys molitrix
13. Warmouth Lepomis gulosus

if you disagree with this, fish and game council meetings are the proper place to express your disapproval and try to get the NJ fish code changed

[jmurr711]

blue cats are going to be 100000x worse than the snakes can ever be, places i catch them they've only made the fishing better for bass which are not a native nj specie & were introduced here in 1874 and all you bassh0les defend those dumb things to the death

[AndyS]

Maybe the bass fishing became better since they have to compete harder for food now. Same thing happened at RV when the herring were destroyed by all the lake trout The big browns were being caught left and right because they were starving competing against the lake trout.

[Broad Bill]

Originally Posted by AndyS

My guide on the Upper Delaware who fishes for trout in the cooler months and smallmouth in the summer months has been posting less and less fish photos lately. He is posting bald eagle and river photos, I wonder why that is, coincidence ??

So is everyone to understand your basing a part of your argument on the fact that the guide you use in the upper Delaware caught one snakehead in the upper Delaware so that in itself means snakeheads caused a major decline in the smallmouth and trout population? C'mon, you can't be serious making a statement like that.

Next we'll be talking about flatheads again where there's no proof whatsoever they threaten existing population.....none. F&G is against anything they don't stock or endorse themselves because it threatens their existence and I'd bet in some way how money is allocated to fish they stock and possibly even state funding. Remember, Virginia F&G is the group and state that initially introduced blue catfish in the 70's for recreational angling opportunities. But now we're supposed to blindly listen to the same agency in every state that created that absolute mess in Va. and is spreading.

If snakeheads are a threat to the Delaware, for the same reason we should kill all muskies and stripers in the Delaware as I guarantee they kill more resident non invasive fish than flatheads and snakeheads combined. Do you support that because I don't? There's a natural food chain if we simply let nature take it's course and stop &^*%$@! with it. Unless there's absolute proof that a species is creating havoc in a system, leave it alone. Blue catfish fall into that category and need to be dealt with as there's sufficient proof they not only kill everything, their voracious appetite is actually in large part responsible for killing an entire ecosystem in the Chesapeake and having negative impacts on many other stocks including stripers, redfish, blue claw crabs etc.

[AndyS]

Muskies and striped bass are not invasive but snakeheads and flatheads are.