Watch for ‘freakish gape-mouthed predators’ in the James River
The James River has become a nationally known fishing hole for freakish gape-mouthed predator called the blue catfish, according to Rex Springston of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. He has plenty of good information in the long, in-depth feature article: Last month an angler caught an apparent world-record 143-pounder in Kerr Reservoir near the North Carolina line. In […]
The James River has become a nationally known fishing hole for freakish gape-mouthed predator called the blue catfish, according to Rex Springston of the Richmond Times-Dispatch.
He has plenty of good information in the long, in-depth feature article:
Last month an angler caught an apparent world-record 143-pounder in Kerr Reservoir near the North Carolina line.
In the 1970s and’80s, when people did such things, Virginia officials put small blue catfish in the James and other state waters to give anglers a new challenge.
Beware what you ask for.
Pollution from sewage plants and farms fed tiny plants that fed tiny animals that fed small fish that fed the blue catfish. The catfish exploded in numbers and size. Today, blue catfish constitute up to 70 percent, by weight, of all fish in parts of the James, according to Virginia Commonwealth University scientists.
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