Removing lure from Snakehead...

[euroshowoff]

I managed to hook into my first snakehead with a top water frog. While I've caught a ton of snakeheads, i've never had one swallow my frog like this one did. I've never had a blowup where the frog was deep in the mouth. It was in pretty bad shape, jaw broken etc, luckily I paddled about 100yds to the pier and gave it to someone who was going to eat it, I catch and release always. Didn't even have a knife or bat to end its misery quickly. What do you do in this situation? 

[geo g]

You don't want to lip those bad boys.  Definitely need a lip locker to allow you to get the pliers in there and work on it.  Never throw them back, kill every one and help control the population.  Every adult can release 100,000 eggs.

[redmexican5081]

I haven't had the chance to fish for snakehead but I think maybe a set of jaw spreaders and some longnose pliers or hemostats would help

[Choporoz]

I use grips, spreaders and hemostats....and @geo g, I throw all back unless there's someone close by that's wants to take it home to eat.   No indication that they have been the disaster that was predicted

[geo g]

2 hours ago, Choporoz said:

I use grips, spreaders and hemostats....and @geo g, I throw all back unless there's someone close by that's wants to take it home to eat.   No indication that they have been the disaster that was predicted

 

 

Right now you have a shot at controlling the population.  Wait a while and you be like us in South Florida with uncontrollable Oscars, clown knife fish, chicelids of all kinds, snakeheads, pythons up to 17 feet, Nile Crocks, 5 foot monitor lizards that eat cats and dogs.  Just wait a while, everything will be OK!!!!!!!!!!!   Lol

 

They eat anything they want including bass, kill everyone you catch!

[Choporoz]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/capital-weather-gang/wp/2017/06/16/apparently-the-once-feared-snakehead-is-just-another-fish-in-the-potomac/

 

 

[soflabasser]

On 8/18/2017 at 9:26 AM, euroshowoff said:

I managed to hook into my first snakehead with a top water frog. While I've caught a ton of snakeheads, i've never had one swallow my frog like this one did. I've never had a blowup where the frog was deep in the mouth. It was in pretty bad shape, jaw broken etc, luckily I paddled about 100yds to the pier and gave it to someone who was going to eat it, I catch and release always. Didn't even have a knife or bat to end its misery quickly. What do you do in this situation? 

 

Nice snakehead.  You are very fortunate to have snakeheads in your area since they are stronger fighters than bass and they add some variety to your fishing. We have snakeheads in South Florida as well, but they are a different species(bullseye snakehead) and they also fight better than the native largemouth bass. The bullseye snakehead are coexisting quite well with our largemouth bass, and I often catch bass in the 18-22'' range as bycatch while fishing for snakeheads. As for what to do with these snakeheads, you did the right thing giving it to somebody since that snakehead appears to be hooked deep and you don't want to kill an animal for no good reason, just because its ''invasive'' or ''exotic''.