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Starting Jan. 1, 2027, catfish anglers in the Ohio River basin will face new regulations, at least when it comes to flatheads and blue catfish. The changes were approved at the latest Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners' meeting.
Under the new regulations, flatheads will have a new possession limit of four, with only one fish being 35 inches or longer. A big change from the current limit of 50, the same as panfish, and the standard practice of having a daily limit. Also approved was a change making blue catfish a catch-and-release-only species.
Surprisingly, both moves are partially motivated by activities outside the Ohio River basin. The first consideration was regulations in West Virginia and Ohio. Traditionally, Pennsylvania attempts to match regulations shared with neighboring states to reduce confusion among anglers. Makes sense. The second consideration was the Susquehanna River and the growing focus on big catfish.
Susquehanna anglers have turned flatheads, which are not native to that basin, into a major fishery. Flatheads, considered native in the Ohio basin but invasive in the Susquehanna basin, have become a sought-after gamefish. Anglers pay more to fish for flatheads than the once king of the Susquehanna smallmouth. Some of these anglers are searching for the next state record, which they are confident will come from the lower Susquehanna River. Others are targeting numbers, primarily through bow fishing. This second group is targeting numbers.
If bow anglers take 50 flatheads per day from the Susquehanna basin, it is not a big concern because they are invasive. However, if those same anglers were to take 50 flatheads from the Ohio basin, where they are native, it has the potential to devastate that natural balance.
The blue catfish is also native to the Ohio basin but considered invasive elsewhere in the commonwealth. In 2022, the commission began a reintroduction program in the Pittsburgh area, hoping to rebuild a once-almost-depleted fishery into a naturally reproducing one. However, once again, activities on the Susquehanna River have threatened that.
As stated earlier, the blue catfish is considered invasive outside the Ohio basin, and commission biologists have not recorded any sightings in the Susquehanna River. But large numbers of blue catfish have been recorded in Chesapeake Bay, enough that they are threatening the Maryland crab fishery. While it is almost inevitable that some of these fish will find their way north to Pennsylvania, the commission does not want humans to speed the process by transferring them from native waters to other parts of the commonwealth. Thus, the catch-and-release regulation making it illegal to possess a blue catfish caught in the Ohio basin. Coupled with current regulations prohibiting stocking any species in a waterway where it does not already occur, this will help lessen this possibility.