![]() ![]() And as blue catfish numbers increase, to the detriment of other species it gobbles up such as the blue crab, it’s important as ever to keep on fishing.īlue catfish are commonly caught in Virginia and Maryland, where they’re abundant in the Chesapeake Bay watershed area. It’s no wonder that so many Chesapeake fisherfolk have relied on the abundant catfish for an income. With high reproductive rates and few predators, the blue catfish makes up approximately 70 percent of the fish biomass-more than 100 million wild catfish-in the Chesapeake Bay and its tributaries. Virginia introduced the blue catfish for recreational fishing in the 1970s, but now there’s no putting the cat back in the bag. Those golden fried fillets of white, flaky meat dipped in cornmeal and flour with a sprinkle of Old Bay, and the catfish chowder my mother makes from scratch, taste better than any fish I know. Even today, I can reel in a dozen blue catfish in less than an hour, more than enough to feed a family. We could catch dinner in our backyard, which made a difference to us as low-income farmers. ![]() ![]() I grew up swimming in the muddy Rappahannock River in Virginia where the catfish are so plentiful, sometimes they’d bump right into me, scaring both of us. ![]()
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