By Molly Kirk/DWR
Photos by John Byrd
One Caroline County angler couldn’t quite believe his eyes when he reeled in a chain pickerel (Esox niger) recently. As the fish emerged from the water, John Byrd realized its mouth was a shade of vibrant blue. “I’d never seen one that color! And I’ve been fishing in that pond for more than 20 years!” Byrd, of Bowling Green, Virginia, said.
![John Byrd and his blue-mouth pickerel](https://dwr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/media/BluePickerelJohnByrd.jpg)
John Byrd and his blue-mouth pickerel
He caught the 11 ½-inch chain pickerel in a 14-acre private pond in Caroline County on a Whopper Plopper lure. Byrd, a retired veteran, kept the fish and contacted Scott Herrmann, a Virginia Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) regional fisheries biologist. Herrmann explained that the fish was exhibiting a “wild genetic pigment mutation” but otherwise normal.
“The coloration expressed by the blue pickerel is extremely rare,” said Herrmann. “It pretty much falls into the one-in-a-lifetime category of catches. The normal coloration expressed in the green of a chain pickerel is from the xanthins of the yellow pigments. Blue pickerel express the rare mutation that is axanthic.”
The chain pickerel is a native fish of Virginia common in rivers and streams and also found in reservoirs and impoundments. 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. Pickerels have fully scaled cheeks and gill covers. The blue-mouth mutation has been reported in chain pickerel in Maryland and Pennsylvania, but is quite rare.
![An image of a blue mouthed pickerel](https://dwr.virginia.gov/wp-content/uploads/media/Notes071323BluePickerel.jpg)
Byrd kept the fish and is having it mounted.