Snakehead Found In AR

[bamabassman]

Still U G L Y To Me. Kill On Sight? Sounds Like It Is Open Season To Me, Hahahahahahahahaha.

[WTL]

I beleive they will be able to eradicate fish on demand in the next 50 years. Heres how:

Not gonna be poison, you can't be selective. Nor predatory species.

Genetic tampering will make it very possible.

Say the snakehead becomes established. The government then gets its biologists to fiddle with the snakehead genes, giving them a gene which causes them cancer or heart disease or extreme suceptability to cold temperatures. They breed these fish and release them into the wild, where they breed with now established populations, they spread the gene and that gene makes the population so weak that natural forces end up doing the rest.

[MississippiBoy]

...and then they end up with supernatural mutant powers, such as telepathy, power over magnetism, instant healing from wounds, and power to control the weather.

Then, we're ALL screwed...LOL

[bamabassman]

hahahahahahahahahaha, right on mississippiboy. then we have to use kyrtonite and stuff to kill em.

[flbassman]

Originally Posted by WTL

I beleive they will be able to eradicate fish on demand in the next 50 years. Heres how:

Not gonna be poison, you can't be selective. Nor predatory species.

Genetic tampering will make it very possible.

Say the snakehead becomes established. The government then gets its biologists to fiddle with the snakehead genes, giving them a gene which causes them cancer or heart disease or extreme suceptability to cold temperatures. They breed these fish and release them into the wild, where they breed with now established populations, they spread the gene and that gene makes the population so weak that natural forces end up doing the rest.

That's an interesting theory. Very realistic too....and scary.
But the truth is, zook could eradicate the species if he wanted. All he'd have to do is buy a few cases of mountain dew, and a couple dozen gas station hot dogs, and retreat to his lab for a couple of days. While there, he could create a modified stein/whiz bang hybrid specifically designed for the snakehead. These could then be distributed, at random, throughout America by bribing FedEx carriers. Once the distribution was complete, Walmart, Oprah Winfrey, and the Nabisco Corporation (or Disney/Dan Marino if they're available) begin a bounty program in which most of the proceeds probably go to charity or buy board of trustee members and congressmen steak dinners and Beamers. After the bounty system was in place, Snakeheads could be vaccum packed and shipped to China, where people in sweatshops would unpack them, add lead/ cyanide/ roundup/ whatever is nearby, grind them into dog food "Seafood Feast, containing fish protein and fresh rice" and sell them back to us for a profit. These profits would then be taken from the sweatshop laborers by the communist government, and used to further expand secret nuclear operations. Then, these nukes could be used to terrorize the free world, especially us capitalist American pigs, into submission, and we would be forced to turn shipments of some species of fish that is causing problems in China, probably smallmouth bass, or maybe trout into dog food. In a sweatshop. For 68 cents a week. Plus benefits. And Oprah would get a cut, probably somewhere near 30%.

So maybe we should just leave it alone.......

[bamabassman]

flbassman that is just about right. hahahahahahahaha. funny as heck there. hear that ol zook? i'll buy the dews for ya.

[Bass'n'cast]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nmU7etSYYqI
herea NG report on it.

[Lilmoosecountry]

When i catch asian carp. I use them as cut cut bait. Other way is keep a box cutter or knife handy slash the gills before returning them to the water.

[WTL]

I just dont want to see people freak out about these things. Of course we dont want them or to help them get established and we should kill and fry on sight, but we don't know for sure that they can outcompete bass. Lets not underestimate the adaptability and preditory skills of bass, pikes, walleye, crappie and yes even gar and catfish. Spawning time for the snakeheads may very well turn out to be dinner time for the bass.

I BELIEVE IN AMERICA AND OUR HOMEGROWN FISH. HUAH!!!

And I mean come on people, we almost hunted Gators to extinction. Buffalo too. And we almost killed our national bird all out as an afterthought. Where is that great destructive America can-do spirit? We can take these bastards.

[doc]

Originally Posted by WTL

I just dont want to see people freak out about these things. Of course we dont want them or to help them get established and we should kill and fry on sight, but we don't know for sure that they can outcompete bass. Lets not underestimate the adaptability and preditory skills of bass, pikes, walleye, crappie and yes even gar and catfish. Spawning time for the snakeheads may very well turn out to be dinner time for the bass.

I BELIEVE IN AMERICA AND OUR HOMEGROWN FISH. HUAH!!!

And I mean come on people, we almost hunted Gators to extinction. Buffalo too. And we almost killed our national bird all out as an afterthought. Where is that great destructive America can-do spirit? We can take these bastards.

I do think bass stand a chance for a while aginst these fish. But if you look at the numbers it doesn't look good for any body of water infested with these babies in the long run.

A mature bass could eat a ton of the fry, but eventually some adults would make it, and in turn eat bass fry. Since snakeheads can outproduce bass in #s of fry its only a matter of time before the tides would turn on the bass. Sure the mature bass would still be top of the chain but without fry, and fingerlings reaching adulthood pretty soon this would be the snakehead fishing forums.

[WTL]

But doc, take into consideration that the adult snakehead would be prey to commorant (shallow water fish), bowfisherman and angler alike - you want to talk about top level predators we got 3 mean ones right there. I think we keep these things very much in check. Zebra mussels and giant salvina scare me a lot more.

The reason animals normally produce lots of offspring, be in rabbits, kittens, auburn fans or snakeheads are the high rates of infant mortality normally because the spawn lack the sense to stay out of danger. What this basically says about snakehead fry is that they tend to be less effective at surviving to adulthood than comparable fish. And yet, people are assuming that since the snakehead has no known predators in north america that suitable predators will not exist for the snakehead - but those minnows are ultimatly nothing but little fish, and as we well know any little fish is very subject to being eaten by a bigger fish.

The snakehead is gonna make enemies and quick. You watch. It is really gonna fall into a very similar niche as the mudfish I believe.

[Jim80]

there was a pond in i belive virgina that this fish was first found in . they tried to fish it and net them but in the end they put poison in the water and killed everything that lived in the pond and then stocked the native fish back in but in the time time the snakehead was in that pond it became the dominate fish of the system which only took about six months

[WTL]

Jim, the pond of which you speak was in Crofton Maryland - and no, the snakeheads did not dominate it - an article I read said they found around 100 fry.

Of course I'm not taking the side he of saying these things arent dangerous or cause for concern, they just arent that dangerous.

[3dkicker]

They're spreading throughout the tidal Potomac river. I've seen only one in the water and I've been in most of the creeks that they are caught in. They are learning a lot about these fish and their seasonal habits. In the summer they move way up into the small feeder creeks and during the winter they move out to the main river points. The bass do the opposite and spend their summers in the main river grass beds so there is little competition during the summer months only during the transition. Some bass stay shallow all year but don't travel as far up the creeks to spawn as the snakeheads do. The main prey of the snakeheads on the river is the sunfish not bass. The river has plenty of predators that eat fish, cormorants, eagles, and osprey and these fish are easy prey for these birds. The numbers are increasing but will probably balance out here in the near future. Also one good winter drought and the fish wintering on the main river points will be killed by the salt water that comes in from the Bay keeping them from moving too far south.

[bamabassman]

well....in my opion. if they prey on the sunfish, then they are gonna take away the food for the bass. right? so kill em all. hahahaha. truly we need to find a way to at least keep them in check.

[3dkicker]

Bass on the river have 50 or so other fish that they prey on. Not to mention other animals like frogs, turtles, craws, eels, etc. I don't know if losing a few sunnies think will hurt them much.
If anyone is really interested in researching how the fish (all species) are affected by the snakeheads there are a couple professors out of George Mason Univ. who sample Pohick Bay multiple times per year. They've been counting fish for 15 years or more and you could probably see if the new species if affecting the catch rate.