Snakeheads: Part Two

Last week I started my mission on the Potomac River to catch, kill and eat the invasive snakehead fish. The first trip was mostly intelligence-gathering. Hanging out on boat landings and asking around to find out who had the good word on where to bag a bad fish.

From the intelligence standpoint that trip was a success. I found a sub-tidal pond connected to the river by only a few yards of tidal stream that is loaded with snakeheads. I also learned a little bit about what tackle to use and what habits could bring me success.

I spent this past week obsessing over snakeheads. I ordered a new Shimano Sonora 2500 reel and found the right weight rod to pair with it (A Daiwa Samurai from a combo that I bought solely for the purpose of cannibalizing the rod). I spent hours watching videos on Youtube of snakeheads in aquariums striking food. I felt ready.

Mason Neck State Park is about a three hour drive from my home in Albemarle County, given the typical traffic in Northern Virginia. I left on Friday afternoon in time to make camp for the night at Pohick Bay Regional Park, which is only a few miles down the road from Mason Neck. The fishing at Pohick Bay is terrible from the shore and not worth even trying, but they do happen to have a campground while Mason Neck closes at 8:30 pm. Early on Saturday morning after a fitful night of humidity and raccoons, I broke camp and went fishing.

8:30 am - I begin fishing. The maiden cast from my new rig feels good. The Daiwa rod doesn't have much sensitivity but I shouldn't need a sensitive for catching a fish that either ignores the lure or hammers it instantly like Cookie Monster on a box of Samoas. What I need is accuracy on the cast and strength with the 16 lb test line, and that I have.

I bought a lot of top water lures to try out. Mostly frogs, but a few fish and unidentifiable floaty things. The Scumfrog looks especially promising. This pond is full of weeds and algae and bucking that stuff is of the first importance. Hopefully this will be like last week and I'll have a strike on my first cast. This time I'm ready, with 16 lb test line and a steel leader.

Crap. Ok, no first-cast fish. But my gear is good and the fish are here. Keep casting and I'll get one.

11 am: Still no fish caught, although I've been seeing feeding activity around the edges. Nothing else is moving in the pond except for tadpoles, snakes, and turtles. I'll put down the rod for a few minutes and take some photos of the turtles.

12:00 - Funny thing about the frogs here that I'm noticing. Usually when I approach to within a few paces of a bullfrog in the daylight he'll jump right into the water before I even realize he's there. The frogs here don't do that. They just sit there and stare at me. They don't want to go in the water -- what they know is down there is a lot scarier than I am.

1 pm - All of these other lures suck. Every single cast comes back full of weeds. No Jitterbugs for me today. Its just me and Scumfrog. Scumfrog goes out on cast after cast after cast free of weeds.

Good thing that Scumfrog looks like a frog, because that is literally the only thing in this pond for the snakeheads to eat. Everything else is gone. I threw the cast net a bunch of times to check for sure and there is nothing else swimming in this pond.

How many damn pictures of turtles do I really need, anyway?

2 pm - Holy effing shit I just saw the craziest thing that ever was. A goldfinch sat on a low branch of a tree that had fallen in the water, only a few inches above the surface. Mere seconds after I took a picture of the bird a snakehead jumped part way out of the water and gulped it down. Not so much as a feather remained. Only a slight set of ripples and a hole in the algae.

Scumfrog. You buck weeds nicely but you're shaped wrong. Why couldn't you be a Scumgoldfinch?

2:30 pm - Again and again I cast Scumfrog into a particular corner where I periodically see a moderate snakehead gulping air and splashing out of the water.

'Scumfrog, you're my only real friend out here. Without you I couldn't cast a single lure.'

As I reflected on Scumfrog, I finally manged to cast him out into what looked like the exact perfect sweet spot. Right into the grasses lining the shore, where I could pull back through the pocket of thick weeds and fallen branches. The sort of snarl of snags that only Scumfrog could make it through. And as dear Scumfrog (my only friend in the whole wide world) plopped onto the water I thought that this was it. The most perfect presentation and if there is indeed a snakehead in this pocket as I believe there to be then he must see and pursue and bite Scumfrog.

Bite he did! The snakehead lunged after Scumfrog; appearing as a torpedo sending up a broad wake of water and algae. He struck onto the lure and the fight was on. I cranked the reel and brought him gradually towards me. His long dark body with its distinctive fin running the length of the back breached out of the water for a moment, like a tarpon trying to throw a hook. I fought him closer and then suddenly he was just gone.

I stared at the still water and felt the limp line beneath my fingers.

'Scumfrog?! Is Scumfrog ok?'

With haste I reeled the line in and examined Scumfrog. Scumfrog was intact, though partially torn around the base of the legs. All of the parts were there, but for the rest of the day Scumfrog was not quite himself any longer. The legs had to be constantly readjusted. The hooks began to dig into and tear the body, which twisted around.

3 pm - The fuss caused by the failed strike has stirred up the pond too much and spooked them. I need to take a break from fishing by going fishing. I walked over to the river side of the walkway and began throwing my cast net in to see about some live bait.

Fathead minnows! And they might have worked but for the fact of the weeds, which the minnows swam through and got everything all tangled up. Live bait just isn't going to work here.

4 pm - Scumfrog keeps getting twisted up now. Nothing else bucks the weeds, and yet the fish refuse to bite and eat Scumfrog. Scumfrog. I find myself unable to comprehend any other words. I am sunburned and my right arm hurts terribly. It is physically painful to reel in my line with Scumfrog on the other end. Scumfrog Scumfrog Scumfrog.

WHY WON'T YOU EAT SCUMFROG?!

5 pm: Sometimes the snakeheads lunge at Scumfrog but don't quite make it. Why not hungry? Hell, I'm hungry. I haven't eaten since the oatmeal and coffee I cooked up at 7 am. Nor have I sat down. Or done anything except for fish.

6 pm: I will stand out here from dawn til dusk for as many days as I have to to kill a damned snakehead. I'll be like the goddamned Zax on the Prairie of Prax. I don't need food. I don't need water. I don't need other people. I don't need anything or anyone except for Scumfrog.

Scumfrog understands me.

6:30 pm. They were feeding in the middle of the branches of the fallen tree, you understand. That was where the snakeheads were. I could see them jumping, right by where they'd murdered the little goldfinch. That was where they were and so that was where I had to cast. And Scumfrog. Scumfrog. He wrapped all around a branch, three or four times. And when I tugged and tugged the line broke off and Scumfrog sank into the hoary depths.

Without my only really useful lure, there was nothing else to do. I had to leave the park and find more weed-bucking lures. By the time I'd gotten anywhere the park was closing and it was time to stop for the night.

I write this blog entry from a cheap Super 8 Motel near Fredericksburg. I stopped on the way at Dick's Sporting Goods and made a bee-line for the fishing section where I asked the guy at the gun counter to point me towards the Scumfrogs.

THEY DO NOT CARRY SCUMFROG.

My head almost exploded. I picked up a few other competing brands of weed-bucking top-water frog lures. Tomorrow I'll put them to the ultimate test and see how they hold up. There's a Gander Mountain nearby where I'll take another look for a Scumfrog in the morning. I'm exhausted and sore and sunburned and hungry but I need to sleep and fish again tomorrow. I did the math and figure that I made about 1,000 casts yesterday.

People who hear what I do for a job are so often jealous. It sounds like the easiest job in the world - I hunt and fish for a living. This is actually a really hard job and it is physically painful more often than not. Most people can decide at any point during the day that they have had enough and they are ready to go home and have a beer. I don't have that luxury. No matter what hurts and how many mosquito bites I have, I have to keep going until I bag the species that I need to complete that chapter of 'Eating Aliens.' People talk about the 'blood, sweat and tears' required to produce a good book, but I think that its only us outdoor writers who have to take that literally.

Maybe this thing ends tomorrow and maybe it doesn't. It took me a solid ten days or so to bag my first nutria in the swamps of Louisiana, in a situation where I was expecting to have it done in two days. Can anyone reading this even understand what its like to spend ten days in a swamp, hunting an invasive giant aquatic rat? Do you understand how I suffer for you, gentle reader?

And by the way, the makers of Scumfrog did not pay me a cent for any of this, though if they would please send me more Scumfrogs right away then I would appreciate it.

Without Scumfrog I am lonely.