Oopsie

[FishnDave]

A river/ocean system seems "open", and the saltwater species can leave the river completely.  Blue cats are saline-tolerant up to a point, but aren't fully saltwater fish, of course.  A closed system like Lakes Marion & Moultrie (Santee Cooper Reservoir), since the dam's completion in 1941, has long been a world-class fishery for both Striped Bass AND Blue Catfish.  Right?  So they can live together.

Elsewhere, I read that in the Chesapeake Bay tribs, Blue Cats now make up 70% of the biomass.    If true, they will likely be forced to become cannabalistic and find their own population balance soon enough.

[FishnDave]

Sounds like Maryland is the new place to go to catch Blue Cats!  Drat.  I was hoping to catch 'em around HERE! 😬

[bfishn]

12 hours ago, FishnDave said:

...I was hoping to catch 'em around HERE! 😬

...sez a guy within easy reach of the Missouri/Mississippi confluence, aka, Blue Cat Vegas.

Added; I love blue cats. They can jerk your rod away if you're not ready. Here's a younger fella's 70lb blue from the AR River quite awhile back;

[Johnsfolly]

1 hour ago, FishnDave said:

Sounds like Maryland is the new place to go to catch Blue Cats!  Drat.  I was hoping to catch 'em around HERE! 😬

I know a few decent blue cat spots. We've been catching lots of 6 to 10 inch blue cats. So they are doing well. From my understanding it was the efforts to make a trophy blue cat fishery in the James River in VA that was tho point of the introductions. The bay changes its salinity t from year to year dependent upon rainfall and the river influences. At the time of the introductions the salinity at the mouth of the James may have deterred movement to other rivers feeding the bay but that changed. Probably 10 or 12 yrs ago. I say that because folks are catching 30 to 40 lb blues which doesn't happen overnight. There is a push to harvest more on a commercial basis but that may only contain them in certain locations.

Since we have been in MD there has been drastic reductions in striped Bass over that five year period. As stated in the article the Chesapake bay and rivers make up 80 plus percent of the entire eastern seaboard spawning populations of striped Bass. The last five years have had numbers of young of the year far less than the 10 year avg in the upper bay. In the lower bay where it is more salty and presumably less blue cats the YOY numbers have been much higher and steady near the 10 yr avg. The YOY surveyed in the Hudson River also have been higher than upper chesapeake bay numbers and there has been an increase above the 10 yr avg. I am not aware that there are no blue cats in the Hudson.

The last two years there has been a drastic reduction of blue crab recruitment. Folks are finding that blue cats are eating the crabs. We also have had a couple years of high flooding in the upper bay. That may also have an effect on recruitment.

From anecdotal fishing reports that seems to be smaller run of yellow perch in the spawning rivers and creeks.

@FishnDave I will have to find the one paper that looked at game species numbers that showed substantial reductions in game species after ten years of snakehead predation. Do have time right now but I'll post it when I find it again.

 

 

 

[FishnDave]

On 3/21/2023 at 5:06 PM, bfishn said:

...sez a guy within easy reach of the Missouri/Mississippi confluence, aka, Blue Cat Vegas.

Added; I love blue cats. They can jerk your rod away if you're not ready. Here's a younger fella's 70lb blue from the AR River quite awhile back;

Nice fish!  Yeah, I feel like I'm near ground zero for blue cats...but I've got this strange affliction where I want to catch one on a fly rod/fly...out of a stream smaller than the big Mississippi or Missouri Rivers.  Those huge rivers intimidate me for some reason.  Side channels and tributaries would be fine.

[bfishn]

22 minutes ago, FishnDave said:

Nice fish!  Yeah, I feel like I'm near ground zero for blue cats...but I've got this strange affliction where I want to catch one on a fly rod/fly...out of a stream smaller than the big Mississippi or Missouri Rivers.  Those huge rivers intimidate me for some reason.  Side channels and tributaries would be fine.

Then there's no better time than the next month or two to hit those smaller tribs. If it's not an unforgivable fly fishing sin to dress a hook with a nightcrawler it shouldn't be that hard. On the other hand, if you're determined to catch them sight-feeding on mayflies (I've seen it happen), it'll take more than a bit of patience.