Why we shoot so many Carp

[Whopperhead]

This was on our local news tonight. This backs up my views on "common Carp" and why I shoot so many of them.


From WMSN-TV FOX 47 (fox47.com)Click to Print This Page | Back to last page | fox47.com

Going Fishing
By Fox 47 Reporter Brian Rodriguez
Mar 11, 2008 at 9:49 pm

Tuesday was a good day to go ice fishing- especially when you are trying to catch thousands of them.
Hired contractors funneled 3,000 feet of net through a giant hole in the ice on Lake Wingra to catch the fish.
A processes called seining.
Something that hasn't been done for more than 50 years.
The net pulled up a number of miscellaneous items, like a canoe.
But it also caught Muskie, Northern Pike and other large fish like a Buffalo.
But those were thrown back in.
What they kept was carp.
"The idea is that if we can get rid of the carp- the water clarity of the lake is going to dramatically improve," says DNR's Richard Lathrop.
The DNR says the carp's feeding activities cause sediments from the bottom of the lake to float to the top.
Which then spreads across the surface of the water.
Turning it into a cloudy green color.
"That causes turbidity which shades the plants- and causes the recycling of nutrients. What you end up with is a lake that is very green that doesn't allow plants to grow," Lathrop says.

The goal is to catch around 2,000 carp.
A majority of which will be sold- by the contractor- to be eaten.





Copyright ©2007, WMSN-TV


AND....This is only Part of the problem with carp. They also reproduce like crazy choking out other spieces. They feed on the eggs of other fish. They have no Predators.

[Mongrel454]

Im not one to kill for the hell of it. But situations like u have with carp it is called for.

[Whopperhead]

And Carp are the ONLY Fish we kill to 'GET Rid' of. Everything else is eaten.

[spaghetti]

Same problem here in Alpine lakes.
But I'm not sure that this issue should be dealt with individual initiative, because after all, who are we to decide, what kind of authority (moral, scientific, institutional authority) do we have to determine which species should be left alone, selectively fished or radically exterminated?
I'm well aware that NO ONE knows what's really going on underwater better than us divers. Obviously. But I'm reluctant to unilaterally give to myself the authority to decide if a species should be eradicated. Who am I to claim?
My thought is that the local institutional authorities should make a proper study, to scientifically determine the objetive impact of carps on the environment, than if the case determine a quota of carps that should be eventually eliminated, and then act in consequence.
Meanwhile, I'm doing my share:

[Mongrel454]

Nice catch

[ILDiver]

I don't think the few of us even dent the population. If fishermen would take some number per year and keep them in check, maybe it would help? There is nothing that "controls" their population naturally. I don't want to see them decimated, just thin the herd and balance the system. I have to think that in Wisconsin, it's not spearos that have over fished the game fish....

[BatRay]

Chris, you just hit the nail on the head. There is nothing that naturally controls the carp population in many places. That's why I think carp should be excluded from gamefish protections in some areas. Here in California, native fisheries are in danger, and carp do not help the situation, especially for trout. However, carp are awarded protections, such as a take season in regards to spearfishing. That seems silly to me.

Good on yer, Scott. Go get 'em, Wisconsin spearos

[Whopperhead]

Yeah, what got me into shooting Carp with a BOW - was my Favorite stream to fish, USE to be awesome, you could catch 30-40 Game fish in a couple hours- that included a trout now and then. NOW- you will only catch a few panfish and a crap load of carp. If you catch a game fish of sometype- your lucky. Not to mention the waters used to be crystal clear and now is very murky. "Seize the Carp"

[land shark]

The attempt to bring carp under control here has only met with one failure after another. For instance lowering lake levels and using organic poisons (rotenone) they found out that the success rate for establishing a balanced ecosystem is virtually gone. Several lakes are now on a cycle of poison and restock every 15 years.
When I was a kid they used to net the lake. It resulted in catches of hundreds of thousands of carp only to see the nets full again next year. As far as having any impact from a sportsman's level is like trying to fill a lake a glass full at a time. I was told that the DNR gave up on the harvest because the market went soft but also they were watching them to see if the pollution that accumulates in them (pcb's) would perhaps lock into the sediments out of harms way. perhaps older fish may not breed as prolifically. So it was an opportunity to see "what if". The fisherman were concerned what the mortality may be to the game species, as bi catch, when commercially netted through the ice.(hard to monitor) It is my understanding that a mature carp can have as much as one billion eggs. the young of the year are only in a predators range for a very brief period of time. There is a school of thought that bluegills are in a position to prey on carp fry in enough numbers to impact carp numbers.
If the need for food is great enough that it pays to net them despite perhaps some pollution then so be it. I think it will not change much except perhaps hunger.

[Jace]

Hahaha im reading this going wtf is a carp.
Whats it related too? As ive never seen anything like this in oz..

[Whopperhead]

it's related to the Goldfish or Koi- bottom feeder.

[Jon]

Too bad we can't get Ted (unirdna) to post in here, but he's too busy helping out with the carp eradication project on Lake Wingra right now.

I guess they had tagged some carp last winter and tracked them to find out where they congregated. Then, this year, they brought in the commercial guys to net them out. So far they predict that they have taken out at least half of the carp in the lake.

All of the University's experiments point to the lakes becoming much cleaner if they can get rid of them. Of course, they will never be able to get rid of all of them, but netting them every spring will make a large dent in the population- the rest is up to us.

Jon

[land shark]

According to the literature netting to eradicate has been done on Wingra before. I believe it was 1976. They did conclude that they were left with negligible reproduction. What would interest me more would be the population censuses of the total forage base. plankton crustation. insects ect. It would be nice if Ted could find the time to lead us to some papers as well I would like to add that if man power is needed count me in if I have the time however the lake is not to nice to us divers clarity wise. I wonder if this can be pony'd up with some milfoil research monies?? seems carp and vegetation go hand and hand.

[Jon]

I know that part of the research was related to the enclosure they put in Wingra over the past couple of years. the walled off an area of the lake and took out every single carp. By the end of the summer the vis in that section of the lake was excellent, but the rest of the lake was crap.

Carp, by their nature, uproot native plants and allow invasive to get a stronger foothold. This causes a chain of events that end up in the lakes tipping against native species and the vis dropping to zero.

I don't know if anything we do would ever be enough. i see what has happened out on Lake Michigan, and while the vis is great, the lake is dying. My brother-in-law had to give up his, once lucrative, commercial fishing job and go back to school to try and pay the bills. Zebra mussels were only the start. the quaga mussels have now taken over and are a much more powerful invasive than the zebra's ever were. They go down hundreds of feet, reproduce year round, instead of just the summer, cover up every structure so that you can't hardly tell what they were to begin with. Add to that the sheer weight of the mussels and the shipwrecks we are famous for no longer have a chance- they are collapsing under the tons of extra weight.

Jon

[Marwan]

so the question is, why arent they eaten? do they just dont tast good or are they poisonous/harmful?
are they difficult to shoot?