Snakehead Fish: How to Identify, Catch, and Handle One

A snakehead fish is a long, toothy predator from Asia that breathes air, and in the U.S. it’s an invasive species you’re told not to put back. The one you’ll meet is the northern snakehead: 20 to 24 in (51 to 61 cm) is common. The rod-and-reel world record is 21 lb (9.53 kg). You catch them on a frog in weedy, shallow water. If you land one, most state agencies say don’t release it.

Throw a snakehead up on the bank and you haven’t killed it. It can live out of water for up to four days if it stays moist.

How do you identify a snakehead fish?

Look at the belly fin. A snakehead has one long fin down the back. It also has a long anal fin, the fin on the underside near the tail, about two-thirds the length of the back fin. That second fin is the check that counts, because the native bowfin looks a lot like it and its anal fin is short.

Then look at the sides and the head. A northern snakehead is brown with big dark blotches, a pattern the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service calls “python-like.” The head is flat and pointy with scales on top, and the big mouth runs back past the eye. The pelvic fins, the pair under the belly, sit almost under the front fins behind the gills.

Snakehead or bowfin: how do you tell them apart?

In New Jersey, every “snakehead” reported before the first real one in 2009 turned out to be a bowfin. Bowfin are natives and belong back in the water, so get this right before you kill anything.

The native bowfin. Check how short that belly fin is. Illustration: Duane Raver, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (public domain)

The burbot is the other fish that gets mixed up here. It has very fine scales and a whisker under the chin, so it’s a quick one to rule out. Virginia also lists lamprey and American eel as look-alikes.

Maryland now calls the fish Chesapeake Channa, so don’t be thrown if your regulations book uses that name.

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What should you do if you catch a snakehead?

Follow these five steps unless your state says otherwise. They track what the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service asks.

1. Be sure it’s a snakehead. Check the anal fin against the table above.
2. Don’t let it go, and don’t toss it on the bank. “Do not release the fish or throw it up on the bank,” the Service says.
3. Kill it. The Service’s way: “Kill the fish by freezing it or putting it on ice for an extended length of time.” Virginia lists faster ways. Take off the head, separate the gill arches from the body, or remove the organs and ice it fast.
4. Take a picture that shows the fins and the mouth, and note exactly where you caught it.
5. Report it to your state, using the contact in the table.

Keep it simple on the water: no snakehead rides home alive. Moving a live one is illegal in Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, Pennsylvania, New York and Texas. Federal law has listed snakeheads as injurious wildlife since 2002. Under that listing you need a permit to import one or to move one across state lines.

What does each state say?

The rules aren’t all the same, and that catches people out. Virginia doesn’t require you to kill a fish you let go right away, for one. These are the agencies’ own instructions.

Rules change, so check your state’s current regulations before your trip. Delaware and Maryland set no size or creel limit on them, and Maryland encourages you to catch and keep them year round. A caught fish with a tag in it is worth a call too: the Fish and Wildlife Service takes tag reports at 800-448-8322.

Are snakeheads invasive, and do they matter?

Yes. They’re native to China, Russia and Korea. Adults get over 90 percent of their food from other fish. They compete with the fish already here for food and cover, Pennsylvania’s agency says.

Your catch counts for something. The Fish and Wildlife Service says harvest by anglers can remove over 25 percent of the local population. That’s why the Service asks anglers to target and keep them, and why nobody should ever move a live one to a new pond.

Bullseye snakehead: what’s the Florida fish?

If you’re in South Florida, the snakehead on your line isn’t a northern. It’s the one everybody calls the bullseye, found in canals in northern Broward County and southern Palm Beach County. Nearly every adult has a dark dot ringed in red or orange on the upper tail. A bowfin has a tail spot too, so check the anal fin here as well.

An adult guarding its young, Broward County, Florida, 2003, captioned as a bullseye snakehead. Photo: Ianaré Sévi (public domain, via Wikimedia Commons)

Anglers typically catch them between 3 and 6 lb (23 to 28 in). The biggest documented fish was more than 14 lb and 37 in. Cold keeps them in the south: they die in water below 50 °F (10 °C).

The name is a bit of a mess. The U.S. Geological Survey now treats the fish in southeast Florida and the Manatee River as goldline snakeheads, a close cousin in the same bullseye group. You’ll still see “bullseye” on most Florida pages.

Where do snakeheads live in the U.S.?

The Fish and Wildlife Service lists northern snakeheads in Delaware, Maryland, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. They’ve spread through nearly all of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. Here are the waters the agencies name.

Inside those waters, think shallow, quiet and full of plants. They like ponds, creeks and backwaters with grass, lily pads or wood. In tidal rivers skip the main channel and work the creeks that feed it. In a lake, look at shallow bays with pads or grass and the backs of feeder creeks.

Snakehead fishing: how do you catch one?

Throw a hollow-body frog at the thickest cover you can reach, and wait for it to disappear. If you only pack one lure, make it that one. Potomac guide Steve Chaconas likes the frog because it’s heavy enough to cast a long way, it floats, and it’s weedless. It also makes noise, and snakeheads hunt by sound as well as by sight. His second reason matters just as much. A frog has heavier hooks than most lures, and a snakehead is strong enough to bend thin ones.

Your second lure is a chatterbait, run along the edge of the grass to find fish. The current world record came on one. Keep a fluke handy too. Throw it at a fish you can see, or right back at the spot where a fish just missed your frog.

Tackle. This isn’t your light bass rod. Use a 7 to 7½ ft heavy or medium-heavy casting rod with 50 to 80 lb braid, and skip the leader. Potomac guide Mike Sielicki ties straight to the lure with a Palomar knot. Heavy braid resists cuts and stretches less than mono, which matters in the thick hydrilla they like.

When. Prime time runs from spring warm-up, around the bass spawn, until the water cools in fall. Low light and overcast days bring more topwater strikes, and the evening before a storm can be very good. In winter they feed infrequently. Fish that are actively spawning won’t eat lures, so move to another creek or another part of the lake.

Tide. On tidal water a falling tide is usually your best bet. Sielicki likes the last three hours of an outgoing and the first three of an incoming. If one tide does nothing, try another.

The hookset. This is where anglers go wrong. They set too soon, because snakeheads often slash at a frog without taking it. So wait. “Set the hook when it disappears, not when a fish hits it,” Chaconas says. Crank up the slack first, then hit it hard, because snakeheads have “bony mouths.”

No boat? You don’t need one. Delaware’s state record came from shore, in a ditch outside Harrington. Walk the bank of a weedy creek or pond and cast along the edges. Spring fish also sit near wood like docks and fallen trees, before the plants grow in.

Landing it. Use a big net, and don’t lip one, because they’re toothy. Clamp a lip gripper on the jaw and use pliers to get your hooks back. Once it’s in the net, go straight to the kill steps above.

Bowfishing is popular too, because the fish come up to gulp air. Many bowfishers go at night from boats with lights. Check your state’s rules first.

How big do snakeheads get, and what is the record?

A northern snakehead commonly runs 20 to 24 in, and 28 in and up isn’t rare. In Virginia the average fish in the agency’s sampling had dropped from about 5 lb to 3 or 4 lb by 2017. Fish over 10 lb still turned up regularly. New York says they can reach three feet, and the world record fish was 36 in.

The IGFA all-tackle record, the one for rod and reel, is 21 lb 0 oz (9.53 kg). Damien Cook caught it on July 5, 2023, from a kayak on a tidal river in Dorchester County, Maryland. He was throwing a chatterbait on 30-lb braid. It replaced Emanuel Tankersley’s 19 lb 5 oz fish from Potomac Creek, Virginia, which took an imitation frog in lily pads in 2018. If a page tells you 19 lb is the record, it’s out of date.

One heavier fish is on the books. Matt Foreman shot a 21.8 lb snakehead with a bow on June 7, 2025, in the Susquehanna River below Conowingo Dam. It’s the Maryland state record. The IGFA doesn’t recognize fish taken by bow or spear, so Cook’s fish is still the world record.

Are snakeheads good to eat?

Yes. Virginia’s agency calls them “excellent table fare,” Fish & Hunt Maryland calls it “tasty white meat,” and Florida’s bullseye has a mild flavor. Cut the gills, then get the fish on ice right away. Don’t use a stringer or a live well. Before you keep any for the table, check your state’s fish consumption advisory for that water.

Can snakeheads walk on land, and are they dangerous?

They can move on land, but “walk” oversells it. A snakehead wriggles across wet ground, rowing with its front fins. It breathes air with an organ that works a bit like a lung. That lets it last a few days out of water if its skin stays moist. That’s why you can’t just leave one on the bank.

The danger is mostly to the other fish in the lake. Watch the teeth when you’re unhooking one. The National Zoo calls them dagger-like, so keep your fingers out of the mouth.

The biology behind the bite

Snakeheads spawn from the end of April through August. A female matures at about two and can lay as many as 15,000 eggs, one to five times a year. Both parents guard the nest. That guarding is why you sometimes see a cloud of tiny fry with a big fish over them. Young fish are golden brown or pale gray.

They eat mostly fish, but frogs, crustaceans and small birds, mammals and reptiles go down too. They can also lie dormant in mud through a drought.

For the other odd predators in the same water, the other freshwater fish hub has the rest of the lineup.

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