Snakehead at Savage Mill

Type: Tidal
Region: Southern
Location: Savage Mill

I was fly fishing with a sex dungeon and crease fly for awhile in the slowest section of a hole in the Little Patuxent but only got one snakehead to briefly chase the dungeon. I decided to switch to a different section of the hole and work the seam on the edge where I noticed two or three frequently hitting the surface. There's a large pile of muck on the bottom, filled with leaves, sticks, and logs, and since these are ambush predators I thought I would have some luck. I started stripping the fly and hooked into what I thought was a large log. It was heavy and didn't move other than when I tugged on it, so I just hoped my leader would hold while I dragged the log out of the water.

This worked for a few seconds until the log started thrashing around violently, and up popped this guy's head. I reeled it in and dragged it up onto the beach. It was clamped down hard on the fly. After a minute or two of trying to pry the fly out with my forceps, I opted to clamp onto the fly and dangle the fish until it got annoyed. Fortunately my strategy worked and it thrashed around until it landed with a large thud on the ground. My poor fly was mangled, but still a passable baitfish imitation.

At this point I realized I didn't have my knife with me, so I just left it laying there to deal with later. I waded back out into the water to cast to the other snakehead surfacing near the same area, turning around every 20 seconds or so to make sure this snakehead wasn't trying to evolve. After about 10 minutes of this I heard a loud flop and turned around to find the fish actively wiggling its way back towards the river. I ran over as fast as the water and muck would allow and gave it a big kick backwards right as its mouth reached the water. This only deterred it briefly as it started wiggling its way back again. One more kick sent it backwards and onto its side. At this point I decided I need to deal with the fish.

The Department of Natural Resources has specifically asked me to kill them when I ran into rangers one day while trout fishing. Due to the lack of a knife, I rummaged around shore until I found a pipe then proceeded to hit the fish in the head until it stopped wiggling. It felt a bit barbaric, but it accomplished the job. I only had a rope stringer with me meant for much smaller fish, so instead I opted to use a stick I found as the stringer. I set it home with my boss and he's feeding his family with it tonight.

These are definitely quite the fish to fight on a fly rod. I think if my next size up in rods was a 7wt or 8wt I would use that instead, but my 9wt seems like overkill, especially since I'm not going to release these fish.