The strange-looking eel-like northern snakehead fish is a prolific invasive fish species that’s not classed as a gamefish anywhere in the U.S. It’s native to Asia and is considered a prime food fish in those regions.
But after well-establishing itself in the U.S., fisheries managers nearly everywhere have worked to remove the species in America by almost any means possible.
The Chesapeake Bay region is a hot spot for northern snakeheads, with lots of fish and some weighing double digits taken annually. Maryland has so many people fishing for snakeheads that they’ve established record catch categories for them – one for hook-and-line catches, another for archery or handline caught fish.
The night of June 7 Matt Foreman, of Crownsville, Maryland and three pals booked a bowfishing charter with Nick Mather, who runs Working Class Outdoorsman charters on Chesapeake Bay.
“I bowfish about once per week in spring and early summer,” Foreman tells Wired2Fish. “I’ve booked trips with Nick previously and they’re always fun. That night my pals Matt Housley, Jason Holsey, Jay Marcum and I headed out after dark to get some snakeheads with Nick. It was awesome, and the fish were very cooperative.”
Foreman says they were regularly into snakeheads cruising near the surface, prime targets for their bows and arrows. About midnight Foreman shot one fish that was much bigger than the others.
“My arrow went all the way through it,” said Foreman, who works for a cyber security company. “But as I was pulling it near the boat, I thought it would come off my fish arrow, so my pal Jay put a second arrow in it and we got it in our boat.”
The guide was excited once the snakehead came aboard, as he knew it was a record fish.
“We put it on a scale that night and it weighed 22 pounds,” said Foreman. “We called around to learn what we had to do to get it weighed on certified scales. We did that and shot some video of it being weighed and measured with witnesses.”
On verified scales the over-3-feet long snakehead weighed 21.8 pounds. They entered the fish with the Bowfishing Association of America, which has set it as a new world bowfishing record for northern snakehead.
Foreman’s fish also is the new Maryland record for northern snakehead taken other than by hook and line.
The Maryland hook and line record snakehead is also the IGFA all tackle record for the species. That 21-pound fish was caught by Damien Cook in July 2023 in Dorchester County, Maryland.
Foreman has high praises for snakeheads as food fish, preferring it even over striped bass.
“I’m going to have a taxidermist make a replica mount of it because it’s a state and world archery record,” said Foreman, who’s an avid bow deer hunter. “I may put the fish mount near my whitetail mounts, but I haven’t decided yet.”
