Maryland recently has taken a few tentative steps aimed at boosting commercial harvest of blue catfish(Ictalurus furcatus), the voracious nonnative predator devouring blue crabs and many native fish in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries.
Efforts to do likewise in Virginia, though, have been at least partially thwarted by resistance from recreational anglers and fishing guides who want to maintain them as lucrative trophy fish.
In Maryland, the Department of Natural Resources announced a pair of pilot programs in February that officials hope will give extra momentum to the upward trend in blue catfish harvests in that state, which topped 1 million pounds last year for the first time.
One would let charter boat captains sell any “excess” blue catfish caught that their paying customers don’t want to keep. It would also let skippers bring more crew members along and sell their catch as well.
The other program would allow a handful of watermen to go after blue catfish in the Bay mainstem south of the Bay Bridge using baited finfish trotlines. That is an increasingly popular gear for targeting catfish that until now has been permitted for use only in the Chesapeake’s tributaries.
“We’re relying on any and everybody to increase removals,” said Branson Williams, DNR’s invasive fishes program manager.
Blue catfish, introduced in Virginia in the 1970s, have spread throughout the Bay and have become the dominant fish in some tributaries. They prey on crabs, striped bass, menhaden, American eels and other economically and ecologically important species.
Maryland’s charter fishing businesses have been suffering because of restrictions imposed last year on catching striped bass, the mainstay of their industry, and some have shifted to targeting the invasive fish. The number of blue catfish charter trips has more than doubled in the last four years, according to DNR, but with anglers only allowed to keep fish within a narrow size range, the number thrown back has also increased.
“If you’re a client and you’re on charter and really catching fish, there can be a limit on how many filets you want to take home,” Williams said.
Not so with everyone. Greg Bruckner, owner of Miss Susie Charters, said his three boats are each running two trips a day going after blue catfish on the Potomac River this spring. But his clients all want to keep whatever they hook, so there is no excess for him to sell.
Even so, six charter captains have been permitted to participate in the pilot program allowing them to sell any excess catch, and there are another 11 applications in process, according to Williams.
With the other program, DNR has permitted 8 commercial fishers to deploy trotlines with baited hooks in the mid- and lower Bay. It’s the gear of choice these days for targeting blue catfish in the rivers and is responsible for a growing share of the overall harvest.
Blue catfish, though, reportedly have been scarce lately in the mainstem below the Bay Bridge. They favor freshwater but can survive in brackish water. That’s how they spread throughout the Bay. But the Chesapeake’s salinity has been above normal lately, the result of drought conditions in the watershed.
“So far, it seems like most of the fish are upriver right now, so we’ve only had a handful of trips in that newly opened area,” Williams said. “Catches have been low.”
Maryland lawmakers endorsed the DNR pilot programs but also pushed to go further. They passed legislation this year calling for the department to allow much longer trotlines than are currently permitted. It also directs the department to consider permitting commercial electrofishing. That is a technique seeing limited use in Virginia, in which a low-frequency electric shock transmitted into the water momentarily stuns fish and brings them to the surface for a minute or two, where they can be scooped up with a dip net.
DNR’s Williams said the department is going to proceed slowly, letting a few commercial fishers help collect and sell blue catfish stunned by DNR biologists when they conduct their surveys this year. Fisheries managers are considering launching a pilot program for that practice, he said.
Electrofishing has gone on in Virginia for more than a decade and has proven successful, if not trouble free. It’s only allowed from April 30 to mid-October, and for only 4-1/2 days per week on portions of three rivers: the James, Rappahannock and Pamunkey. Yet the three holders of electrofishing permits account for 11% of the state’s overall blue catfish harvest, which surpassed 3 million pounds last year.
“It’s by far the most effective means,” said Pat Geer, fisheries chief for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission.
Recent efforts to expand the fishery, though, have gone sideways. VMRC staff proposed increasing the number of electrofishing permits to 10 and adding a couple of new tributaries where the gear can be used. They also proposed doing away with limits on the size of blue catfish that can be harvested from electrofishing.
But commission members questioned if the electricity might harm fish eggs and cited reports of other finfish being injured or killed by the shock — though Geer pointed out that the voltage permitted is low enough that it stuns only scale-less fish like catfish. Commissioners also cited complaints, mainly from the Rappahannock, about electrofishing conflicting with recreational and other commercial fishing.
In February the commission chose not to expand the number of permits or the areas open to electrofishing. They did away with size limits but added restrictions on where electrofishing can be done, barring it within 300 yards of any public or private piers.
George Trice, who pioneered commercial electrofishing in Virginia and is licensed to do it on the James River, said eliminating size limits was a help. But David Johnson, who has the permit to electrofish in the Rappahannock, said because blue catfish like to hang out around underwater structures, including piers, he had probably lost half the area in that river where he could hope to harvest them.
A separate effort to lift the one-fish daily limit on fish longer than 32 inches sailed through the Virginia General Assembly, a victory for commercial fishers who chafed at the catch restriction. But Republican Gov. Glenn Youngkin vetoed the bill, saying it would undercut recreational fishing for blue catfish, especially the economically important trade of fishing guides helping big-spending anglers hook trophy-sized fish.