Invasives

[BilletHead]

             I ate many of them. Aunt and uncle had a pond full of them. Cousin and I would fire up the Colman lantern and fish in the late evenings. This is where i learned to like the smell of night insects getting killed by the hot lantern. Uncle worked at 3M and they had a fishing contest during the spring and summer family deal for several fish species. We entered one and made fifteen bucks. Had a girlfriend and went to visit her one morning. She was heading to one of their ponds to check lines. She was unhooking all kinds of little bullheads. Went back to the house and she cleaned them. This way she did it was odd to me. She dropped them one by one in a pot of boiling water like scalding a chicken. Just a dunk was all it took to just slip the skin off. then into a cold-water bath until they were all done. 

[tjm]

7 hours ago, Quillback said:

walking catfish

Established in 31 drainages in Fl (about 2/3 of the state) failed in  California, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, and Nevada. Interestingly banning them resulted in more releases-

"Additional introductions in Florida, supposedly purposeful releases, were made by fish farmers in the Tampa Bay area, Hillsborough County in late 1967 or early 1968, after the state banned the importation and possession of walking catfish (Courtenay and Stauffer 1990). " (and from aquarium owners too)

If you want to get rid of an imported pet species, collect them before banning possession  of them.

[tjm]

4 hours ago, Quillback said:

No one fished for them, and I didn't know anyone that ate them, I certainly did not.  Rumor had it they were good to eat. 

I  caught and ate lots of hornpout in RI, mostly in trout streams. My mother in law liked them and eel more than most kinds of fish. Both will take a fly. I saw a few others that took them too using bait, but as you said not many fished for them, but then I never saw many people fishing fresh  water at all in RI or SEMA.  Not many bullhead in the local waters, that I have seen. And in looking up the catfishes I just discovered that flatheads are invasive in this area.

[Quillback]

57 minutes ago, tjm said:

I  caught and ate lots of hornpout in RI, mostly in trout streams. My mother in law liked them and eel more than most kinds of fish. Both will take a fly. I saw a few others that took them too using bait, but as you said not many fished for them, but then I never saw many people fishing fresh  water at all in RI or SEMA.  Not many bullhead in the local waters, that I have seen. And in looking up the catfishes I just discovered that flatheads are invasive in this area.

Did not know that about flatheads.

One of my high schools buddies had a Portuguese grandad.  His grandad and his buddies would fish for eels in the Charles river at night.  They kept them, and I believe it was a Portuguese tradition to have eel as part of Christmas dinner.  

I have eaten eel at Japanese restaurants, and it is pretty good.

 

[tjm]

2 hours ago, Quillback said:

Did not know that about flatheads.

Apparently just invasive  in the Neosho and Illinois drainage as they were native over most of Ar. and Mo. including the White River, per USGS. Although 35 years or so ago my Uncle went on a rant about how Bella Vista Village had stocked so many channel cats that they were displacing the 'native' flatheads in L.Sugar Creek. He swore there "didn't use to be any forked tailed catfish in Little Sugar."

[Al Agnew]

A friend's family built a "big" lake (over 100 acres, 70 feet deep at the dam) in a big hollow draining only woodland, no ponds anywhere in the watershed above it.  The creek they dammed up was dry except for small pools that usually dried up by mid-summer.  They stocked it with the usual bass, bluegill, and channel catfish.  About 5 years after it was built, they had MDC come in and electroshock to sample the fish population and give them recommendations on how to better manage it.  I was along with the guys shocking it.  They shocked THOUSANDS of bullheads.  Now I suppose there could have been bullheads in those little pools on the creek, most of them about bathtub size, and maybe those bullheads dug down into the gravel when the pools went dry.  But it was sure a surprise to see them in that lake.

[tjm]

Surprising that no one had caught any of them over a 5 year time span.

[fishinwrench]

It has been my experience that once bullheads are established in a pond/lake/strip pit ......you can pretty much kiss the channel cat goodbye.   

[fishinwrench]

10 hours ago, tjm said:

. And in looking up the catfishes I just discovered that flatheads are invasive in this area.

Flatheads are native to the Mississippi river and all of it's tribitarys......as far as I know.

[tjm]

 

38 minutes ago, fishinwrench said:

Flatheads are native to the Mississippi river and all  some of it's tribitarys..

 

The gold on the  map below denotes indigenous populations  and the burgundy denotes non-indigenous populations; call it expansion of range or invasion- the flatheads in the Neosho drainage were apparently first stocked in SEKs prior to 1911 and the ones in the Illinois were stocked  in NWA about the late 1930s.Both populations expanded downstream to join with the Ar. River population.

Interesting animated map that shows the spread. https://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/SpeciesAnimatedMap.aspx?speciesID=750

Here in the four states corner we would have had channel cats and black bullhead. These drainages also have other indigenous species that differ from the rest   of the Ozarks like the Neosho bass, red spot chub  and  others, I believe.