Blue Catfish Qualify For Delaware State Records

The other night Ryan Henry, Ethan Henry, and Cody Gallien were fishing Broad creek and Ethan landed a 25.2 pound catfish.  They sent me a message asking if it was the new state record.  I told them no since it was an invasive blue catfish.  However after checking with DNREC this week, I found out that blue catfish do count for the state record catfish.  I found this out when I requested that DNREC add the blue catfish to the state record tournament since we have a great deal of them in our waters.  They are invasive and you are must remove them from the waters when you catch them.  DNREC  … “INVASIVE: Please do not return to water. Immediately kill and contact Fish and Wildlife at 302-739-9914 ”   I was asking DNREC to have blue catfish added because it looks like they have quite a foothold in Delaware and adding them to the tournament might get people to fish for them more to help eradicate them.  I had no idea that blue catfish counted for the Delaware state record catfish.  These fish can get to upwards of one hundred pounds, getting rid of the larger ones would help relieve their pressure on our waters.  They also make very good table fare, so eating them is definitely an option, and blackened catfish is an excellent method.

So, to make up for my wrong answer,  as far as we are concerned, Ethan Henry caught a state record catfish the other night.  It was  officially weighed in at a certified scale, but no one knew it qualified as a state record, which is odd to say the least.  As long as the fish weighed over twenty four pounds he would have gotten the record, his weighed in at 25.8 pounds.  Sorry Ethan, you will just have to go catch another one.  The present state record catfish is held by, William Ridgley at 23 pounds 6 ounces in 1992.   This is the answer I got back today from John Clark,  DNREC Fisheries Section Administrator, I was asking if it was okay to announce that blue cats qualify, since it would seem no one knows this …  ” You certainly can announce it Rich, and please refer your followers to our (if I can blow our horn here) awesome interactive web site for information on which fish qualify for the tournament.  At Delaware Fish Facts for the Recreational Angler http://fishspecies.dnrec.delaware.gov/ , anglers can find out that Blue Catfish are an invasive (species), so we ask that anglers keep them when they catch them and they can also find out that Blue Catfish are eligible for our Sport Fishing Tournament. ” 

Fish On!!

Rich King