CAROLINE COUNTY, Va. — A man in Caroline County was surprised by the bright blue color of a fish he reeled in. It turned out the fish was a chain pickerel with a rare mutation.
"I'd never seen that one color! And I've been fishing in that pond for more than 20 years," said John Byrd of Caroline County.
He caught the 11-and-a-half-inch chain pickerel in a private pond in Caroline County.
Byrd, a retired veteran, kept the fish and contacted Scott Hermann, a Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources regional fisheries biologist.
Herrmann explained that the fish was exhibiting a “wild genetic pigment mutation” but otherwise normal. With a long, slim body, its typical coloration includes yellowish to greenish (almost black when young) sides overlaid with a reticulated, or chain-like, pattern of black lines.
The blue-mouth mutation has been reported in chain pickerel in Maryland and Pennsylvania but is quite rare.
