Blue Catfish drawing, courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife National Digital Library, online at http://digitalmedia.fws.gov/.
According to the Maryland Department of Natural Resources, on August 13, 2012, an Oregon angler caught a Maryland state record Blue Catfish in the Potomac River near Fort Washington, Md. The 84-pound fish exceeded the existing record set by a Pennsylvania angler in February 2012 with an 80-pound blue cat, caught near the same Potomac River location. The new record fish was tagged and released as part of a program by Maryland and Virginia to monitor this non-native, invasive fish species. Native in the Mississippi, Missouri, and Ohio river basins, Blue Catfish have been stocked in several Virginia rivers for many years. In Virginia, the species is now widespread in tidal streams and rivers, especially in Virginia’s James and Rappahannock rivers, and the large Blue Catfish populations can diminish other species, such as Channel Catfish and White Catfish. For a previous post on Blue Catfish, please see “World-record Blue Catfish Caught in Mecklenburg County” (June 29, 2011). Virginia Department of Game and Inland Fisheries (DGIF) information on Blue Catfish is online at http://www.dgif.virginia.gov/wildlife/fish/details.asp?fish=010390.
Source:A record catch for an unwelcome fish, Washington Post, 9/8/12
