Suwannee River-Channel Cat Die Off

[Doc Mitchell]

I just got back from putting my skiff in at Fanning Springs on the Suwannee River. I had read in the newspaper about a week ago that there was something killing the Channel Cats. The authorities had some opinions as to what caused it, but they all proved unfounded after some fairly thorough testing. The one thing they haven't ruled out is a virus that is found responsible for farm raised catfish kills. That report should be out soon, but not yet.

For your information, I saw 8 dead Channel Cats floating down the river in a period of about 10 minutes. They were about 1 to 3 pound fish. What a waste. If it does turn out to be that farm raised catfish virus I don't really know what Fish and Game can do about it. I know that Fish and Game releases catfish into our rivers all the time and hope beyond hope that they aren't the ones that seeded the river down with infected hatchery fish!!!

Well anyway, I won't be fishing the Suwannee for anything until this situation gets cleared up.

[Dwednuts]

This is the type of thing that happens when man tries to interupt natures natural course.
We now have Big Head Carp in the major rivers because of greed.
We now have states that want to take out all the flatheads in a certain area that are natural to the area, so they can stock non-native fishes. (trout)
We now have states that turn a blind eye to the raping of rivers buy commercial fishermen who line their pockets to keep raping the rivers.
Now we have this going on, man what a mess!!!

[Swampy]

I hadn't heard about this until now. I'll have to check into this before I go back to the S. river. Thanks for posting it.

[Swampy]

This is the type of thing that happens when man tries to interupt natures natural course.
We now have Big Head Carp in the major rivers because of greed.
We now have states that want to take out all the flatheads in a certain area that are natural to the area, so they can stock non-native fishes. (trout)
We now have states that turn a blind eye to the raping of rivers buy commercial fishermen who line their pockets to keep raping the rivers.
Now we have this going on, man what a mess!!!

JW I couldn't agree more. They let them take fish to make big bucks off of then we end up paying for it in the long run when things like this happens.