Blackwater Snakeheads and More

Type: Tidal
Region: Eastern
Location: Blackwater

My wife Sharon and I launched our canoe at the access area on 335 around 9:00 am, targeting largemouth bass but happy to catch anything with a mouth. Fishing started slow and took nearly 3 hours before Sharon caught the first bass, which was a 14" spawned out female. The next several hours produced about 6 small white perch up to about 5" and one white catfish that was about 14". We steadily headed up river with the footbridge being our point to turn around, upon reaching the bridge we decided to get out and stretch our legs and fish a little more.

Within minutes of being on the bridge I watched a small fish eat something from the surface and immediately recognized the fish as a snakehead. A few casts later I had hooked my first snakehead on a small spinner bait. The fish hit like a truck and jumped completely out of the water, the fish was easily 30 inches long but it did shake off a few seconds later. No problem though a few casts later and I was hooked up again, this time I successfully landed it, my first snakehead, 20 inches and really fat so I suspected a female. A spike through the spine and on the stringer, a welcome guest of honor for a fish fry. We fished the bridge for about an hour and a half and I landed 3 snakeheads measuring 20", 16" and 15". My wife caught one that I could not get up on the bridge before it shook off. We had four other snakeheads hooked that we could clearly identify, 2 of which were around 30 inch fish. All 3 fish that were landed were removed and in our freezer, all 3 were females full of eggs.