Mike Mangold with blue catfish at Dyke Marsh,Virginia

Dyke marsh is a 380 acres tidal wetland just south of Alexandria, VA, and north of historic Mount Vernon. Located on the West Bank of the Potomac River some 95 miles from the Chesapeake Bay, it consists of tidal marsh, floodplain, and swamp forest. Managed by the U.S. National Park Service as part of the George Washington Memorial Parkway, Dyke Marsh not only provides habitat for a diverse array of plants and animals, it also offers an ideal setting for a variety of recreational activities like fishing and boating. Employees from the U.S. Fish Wildlife Fishery Resource Office of Annapolis, MD are contracted to survey the fish population in cooperation with the National Park Service. These yearly fish surveys not only examine fish population composition, size, and health but possible changes in trends over the years. A variety of fishery techniques are used including minnow traps, eel pots, gill nets and electrofishing. Tina McCrobie and Mike Mangold often pull in large fish such