02-04-2004, 07:03 PM
Carp also tend to root up a lot of the vegetation, leaving bare muddy bottoms and a lot of habitat that is unsuitable for other gamefish species.
For example, a local natural lake here in Utah, called Utah Lake (appropriate, [
]), used to be full of native cutthroat trout, chubs and suckers. When the first settlers came and settled on the lake shore, they brought with them the infamous carp -- which grow quickly and are easy to catch. The carp actually sustained them through the tough first few years. It also helped sustain poor people in Utah during the Great Depression. Unfortunately, Utah Lake is now a warm water species only lake. Although the rivers that dump into it still are full of trout, Utah lake is a shallow, muddy warm lake that trout cannot survive in except temporarily in the wintertime. The carp have completely destroyed most of the previously existing natural vegetation. Now the only plants are bullrushes and cattails along the shoreline.
There is also an endangered species, the June Sucker, that only lives in Utah Lake -- nowhere else in the entire world, and I believe the carp fry each year compete with the June Sucker for food.
I think that carp are fun to catch, and I don't mind hooking one now and again when I'm catfishing. Usually it means I now have bait to last for the rest of the year. If I don't need it though, I let it go.
[signature]
For example, a local natural lake here in Utah, called Utah Lake (appropriate, [

There is also an endangered species, the June Sucker, that only lives in Utah Lake -- nowhere else in the entire world, and I believe the carp fry each year compete with the June Sucker for food.
I think that carp are fun to catch, and I don't mind hooking one now and again when I'm catfishing. Usually it means I now have bait to last for the rest of the year. If I don't need it though, I let it go.
[signature]