When New Kent fishermen Chris Von Hatten and Christopher Whitmire go out on the Pamunkey River in the early hours of the morning, they hope to catch 3,000 to 4,000 pounds of blue catfish by midday.
Their success reflects the huge numbers of the giant fish in the waterways. They are also playing a part in fighting a looming ecological crisis.
The threat posed by the invasive species to rivers such as the Pamunkey and the Mattaponi as well as the Chesapeake Bay is depicted by filmmaker Burke Moeller in his latest video for Real Virginia, a long-running series for the Virginia Farm Bureau Federation that runs on PBS.
"These watermen and many are concerned the catfish are eating up the other species in these rivers that lead to the Chesapeake Bay, making those other fish, oysters and clams more scarce," Moeller says in the video.
Von Hatten said the catfish have dramatically reduced the number of shad, crabs and eels in the river. "There used to be plenty of eels in this river ... not so many anymore," he said.
Moeller said blue catfish were stocked in the tributaries of the rivers in the 1970s and 1980s as a trophy fish for recreational fishermen. Now they are taking over and have been caught as far away as Buckroe Beach in Hampton.
"We are on the precipice of what I would say is a catastrophic event in our seafood economy because of the blue catfish," Michael Schwarz of the Virginia Seafood Agricultural Research and Extension Center told Moeller. "They are literally consuming anything they get into their mouth and they're doing it very effectively."
Schwarz said the fact that the blue catfish taste so good offers a potential solution to the crisis. Many restaurants are now offering blue catfish on their menus.
The short film explores how the catfish could produce jobs for watermen, boat companies, fuel companies, distribution companies, gear suppliers, food service, retail and restaurants. However, a lack of processing facilities is restricting the industry's growth, Moeller reports.
The catfish issue has led to bipartisan legislation in Congress to create a market for the fish.
In July, U.S. Reps. Rob Wittman, who represents Virginia's 1st District, and Sarah Elfreth of Maryland introduced the Mitigation Action & Watermen Support Act to address invasive blue catfish and protect aquatic ecosystems in the Chesapeake Bay.
The legislation would establish a "pilot program within the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Chesapeake Bay Office to create a new market for blue catfish in the pet and animal food industry and instruct the NOAA to collect data on the impacts of this program on the biodiversity of the Bay and health of fish and crustacean populations."
Moeller's film will run until Sept. 5 on WTKR in Norfolk and WRLH Richmond, and nationwide on RFD-TV. Real Virginia airs weekly on WTKR Norfolk and on the first and third Saturdays at 8 a.m. on WRLH Richmond.
The video, titled "Virginia's Blue Catfish Threatens Native Species," is also on YouTube at youtu.be/nzbyjAj6lZ4?si=5y-rrmbYdKSjSOt9.