VA to Lift Blue Catfish Limits

 National Fisherman, Virginia moves to lift blue catfish harvest limits

Lawmakers in the U.S. state of Virginia have introduced a bill to eliminate restrictions on harvesting of blue catfish, an invasive species that has devastated ecosystems in the Chesapeake Bay region.

Since their introduction to the Chesapeake Bay as a recreational fish in the late 1960s, predatory blue catfish have come to dominate waters in Virginia and neighboring Maryland.

“We are beginning to see disturbing trends in both our commercial fishery landings and our survey data,” Maryland Governor Wes Moore explained in a letter seeking federal assistance in 2023. “Since 2012, landings of seven of Maryland’s marquee commercial fishery species which share habitat with invasive fishes at some point in their life cycle have declined between 27 percent and 91 percent.”

The U.S. Department of Commerce ultimately denied Moore’s request for a fisher disaster determination, claiming the fish have not had a big enough impact on the state’s commercial fisheries.

I guess they instituted the limit when they deliberately imported the Blue Catfish into the James River system as a gamefish, an introduction which was wildly more successful than they ever imagined.

Fine Dining Lovers, The Chef, the Catfish, and the Cause "How The Dabney’s Jeremiah Langhorne Is Restoring the Chesapeake—One Blue Catfish at a Time"

Jeremiah Langhorne never imagined he would become a champion for blue catfish. But at his hearth-powered, one Michelin-starred restaurant, The Dabney, in Washington, D.C., where he puts a thoughtful spin on the storied cuisine of the Mid-Atlantic, the invasive species that’s terrorizing the Chesapeake Bay has become an unlikely breakout star.

Langhorne was born in the D.C. area but grew up in the Shenandoah Valley and Charlottesville, Virginia. After training under chef John Haywood at the now-closed OXO in Charlottesville, he went on to work for Sean Brock at the acclaimed Low Country restaurant McCrady’s in Charleston, South Carolina. His experiences there, along with a stage at Noma, shaped his dedication to locally grown and wild ingredients.

When he moved back to D.C. in 2013 to open The Dabney, he set out to build a network of farmers, foragers, and fisherfolk. To explore what he could source from the sea, he consulted Chesapeake Bay watermen, and one suggestion kept coming up again and again: blue catfish.

Curious to better understand the species, he took time away from the kitchen to go fishing for them himself. Blue catfish are often caught using long lines with lures placed every eight feet. "If you’re in the right spot, you’ll have a catfish on every single one," Langhorne says, recalling how he grew up fishing and even worked for a commercial seafood purveyor as a teen in Charlottesville. "It’s like shooting fish in a barrel."

The more he witnessed the ecological damage these invaders caused, the more he wanted to help curb their spread—one filet at a time. “I made a commitment to always have catfish on our menu no matter what,” he says.

Langhorne faced an initial hurdle: many diners associated catfish with a muddy, undesirable flavor. “When I first started putting catfish on the menu as an entrée at The Dabney, people had problems with it,” says Langhorne. “A lot of people would tell us, ‘Oh, this isn't a good fish. Why don't you give me black cod or halibut?’”

What many guests didn’t realize is that blue catfish isn’t your average catfish. “It has a clean flavor profile; it’s not fishy at all,” says Langhorne. “The flesh is flaky and has lots of moisture. It’s delicious.”

Determined to highlight the fish in a way that would win guests over, he created a dish that quickly became a hit: cornmeal-crusted catfish sliders on sweet potato Parker House rolls with ramp tartar sauce, bread and butter pickles, shaved red onion, and lettuce. Another popular addition was his smoked blue catfish dip—a refined yet comforting dish that wouldn’t feel out of place at a Super Bowl party. Now, The Dabney goes through up to 20 pounds of blue catfish a day.

The fish even found its way onto the menu at his French restaurant, Petite Cerise, where he serves cornmeal-crusted filets with an herb salad and sauce gribiche. “It’s a surprise hit, outselling the fried chicken entrée by a three-to-one margin,” says Langhorne.

Yep, they're surprisingly good. 

The Wombat has Rule 5 Sunday: Demure, Relaxed, & In Her Lane ready and waiting at The Other McCain.