Virginia Juggling Blue Catfish

Virginia sees Blue Catfish as both a valuable sport fish, and a potential environmental threat. It's managing them by allowing  very productive electro-fishing on the smaller fish, but protecting the larger ones from commercial fisherman. Bay Journal, 'A juggling act': Virginia's dual approach to invasive blue catfish

Chesapeake Bay fishery managers are trying to boost the harvest of blue catfish to limit the spread and ecological impact of the non-native species, which is gobbling up blue crabs and native fish in rivers throughout the estuary. Publicity campaigns in Maryland and Virginia are encouraging people to fish for and eat the invasive fish.

The electrofishing used by Trice and a handful of Virginia fishers offers arguably the most efficient way to catch them in large quantities. On that day, under less than favorable conditions, Trice and his crew landed 3,500 pounds worth. But they have regularly scooped up 6,000 pounds a day, at least in years past.

Now, that's a boatload of catfish! 

Virginia is the only jurisdiction in the Bay watershed to permit commercial electrofishing for blue catfish, though even there it’s tightly circumscribed. The state has issued just three permits, one each for portions of the James, Rappahannock and Pamunkey rivers. Electrofishing is allowed from April 30 to mid-October, and for only 4 ½ days per week.

State regulations also prohibit electrofishers from taking most of the largest fish because recreational anglers like to catch them. So electrofishers may take only a dozen longer than 25 inches and none more than 28 inches. While that is the average size of an adult blue catfish, many can and do grow much larger, with some reaching 5 feet in length.

Even so, the three electrofishing permit holders account for around 11% of Virginia’s overall blue catfish harvest, a disproportionate share of the record 3.2 million pounds landed in 2023 by a total of 114 commercial harvesters. Most commercial harvesters use various nets, fish pots or traps and hook and line, but that type of gear yields substantial bycatch of other fish that must be weeded out by hand. In electrofishing, the current is low enough to stun only fish without scales, so only catfish rise to the surface.

Virginia’s watermen, anxious to counter the losses of crabs and native finfish to voracious blue catfish, want the Virginia Marine Resources Commission to relax its curbs on electrofishing. At a meeting of the commission’s finfish advisory committee last winter, they asked for more electrofishing permits. They also voted overwhelmingly to recommend eliminating all size and season restrictions on the practice.

They're good to eat, and relatively cheap too. The price commercial fishermen are paid for them is pitiful, between 25 and 50 cents per pound.