By Alex McCrickard, DWR Angling Education Coordinator
Every spring, the Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) stocks channel catfish at various urban impoundments across the state. This effort is part of DWR’s FishLocalVA initiative and is aimed at creating exceptional angling opportunities in urban metropolitan areas. It’s an effort that has a lot of moving parts, from acquiring the channel catfish to distribution across the state including transportation and stocking efforts. DWR’s hatchery staff work with fisheries biologists, outreach staff, agency complementary workforce volunteers, and other regional entities to get the job completed. It takes a lot of coordination, and behind it all is Chris Dahlem, Hatchery Manager at King & Queen Fish Hatchery.
“We used to raise channel catfish, but they need a longer and warmer growing season than Virginia provides,” said Chris Dahlem. “Now DWR purchases the catfish from vendors in the south, where they are much more efficiently grown, opening up more DWR hatchery ponds for producing a multitude of other fish types. My station acts as the urban catfish program distribution and coordination center.
“Coordination is the key,” said Dahlem. “Once my supervisor does the legwork to determine the need and procure the fish, it’s my task to receive the five tons of catfish and distribute them using seven trucks from five hatcheries, all within two days.”
Most of the channel catfish stocking destinations require multiple people involved in the process of offloading the stocking trucks. So, in addition to DWR hatchery staff and additional staff from other DWR divisions such as Aquatic, Outreach, and Maintenance, others such as DWR Conservation Police Officers, volunteers, and end users (county and city managers, parks rangers, fisher folks, etc.), pitch in to help accomplish the task.
Recently, channel catfish were stocked at impoundments including Dorey Park Pond, Northwest River Park, Oak Grove Lake, Shields Lake, Cook Lake, Locust Shade, Old Cossey Pond, Armistead Pointe Pond, and Wilkins Lake.
Channel catfish are great fun on rod and reel and an excellent species to target when introducing someone to the sport of fishing. Consider visiting one of the FishLocalVA waters that was recently stocked with friends and family as Free Fishing Days is coming up the first weekend in June! A 6′ or 6’6″ medium- or medium-light action spinning rod is perfect for targeting these freshly stocked fish. Anglers can find success fishing on the bottom with a Carolina rig set with a small circle hook and a ¼ or ½ ounce sinker. For bait you can try night crawlers, chicken livers or fresh cut bait.
For additional information on how to catch channel catfish check out our July 2020 Fishing Report where we break down tactics and techniques at Dorey Park in Henrico, Virginia.
Channel catfish are also one of the best-eating freshwater fish you can catch. Always check the regulations before planning your trip. The waterbodies mentioned above have a creel limit of four channel catfish per person per day with no size limit. You can also only have one active fishing rod per angler on these waters.
Saltwater Report
The Chesapeake Bay’s world class big red drum season is heating up on the Eastern Shore shallows. The fish are increasing daily in both size and numbers. Captain Todd Beck of Knot Wish’n Charters says. That schools are also scattered along the oceanfront. While anchored for reds on shoals, peeler crabs or blue crabs are the best bait. When schools are spotted on the surface, lures and large bucktails will get their attention. Black drum are feeding in the same areas. The Black’s love fresh clam fished on the bottom.
A bunch of cobia have been caught and released, but the capture season doesn’t begin until June 15.
The water temp is 67 degrees along the oceanfront and both Spanish mackerel and bluefish are showing. There have also been some reports coming from inside the bay as well.
Local inlets are holding a few speckled trout, rockfish, flounder and puppy drum. Connie at Long Bay Pointe Bait and Tackle said that the flounder and bluefish are biting inside Lynnhaven inlet and puppy drum bite is good as well.
Anglers fishing off the Virginia Beach Fishing Pier are catching scattered puppy drum, Spanish mackerel and roundheads.
Captain Nolan Anger from Aquaman Charters says that offshore, deep dropping for tilefish is excellent and loads of seabass are being caught on inshore ocean wrecks. The head boats at Rudee Tours are running, half-day trips, primarily for croaker, flounder and small sharks.
OBX
Wednesday saw warmer weather and pretty good fishing. Anglers had some nice puppy drum come in, plus black drum, bluefish, trout, and a good mullet bite. The nearshore fleet found a few cobia and the Spanish and bluefish bit as well. The offshore fleet had a good day with limits of mahi and some good size yellowfin and big eye tuna with the largest at 157 pounds. Some king mackerel were gaffed and several blue marlin and a white marlin were released. Bottom fishing remains good.
Freshwater
The tidal James and Chickahominy Rivers continue to produce outstanding catches of bass. The topwater action is getting better every day as the vegetation thickens. The tidal Rappahannock has been good for Largemouth, Smallmouth, and Catfish. These rivers are producing keeper Rockfish, which are mostly males, as the larger females are returning to saltwater.
The upper James River is heating up and topwater baits are producing as smallmouth recover from the spawn.
Crappie are starting to move to deeper locations in bigger numbers, but can still be caught in the 8-12′ range under docks.
The Stripers at Anna are going for live bait early in the mornings. Some of the guides are returning to the marinas by 10 AM with multiple person limits. The majority of the bass in the lakes are in post spawn mode – an excellent time for topwater baits. Bluegills are bedding throughout the state.