06-01-2011, 07:38 AM
Well idahocarpin, I would actually think carp are worse. Carp from my understanding at least some species. Some like the big head or asian carp, will eat plankton. Fresh water clams will eat this plankton. Clams are something catfish love to eat least here they do. These plankton are then eaten by forage fish. Minnows, chubs, shiners, daces, suckers, killifish, shad, bony fish, sunfish (small mouths and crappie are excluded), native carp and eulachon (anadromous). They all eat plankton.
Where as large mouth bass, will only eat these forage fish, or forage creatures such as crayfish. So large mouth will kill out the forage fish, but carp can wipe out entire ecosystem from plant matter to plankton. Fish such as the paddel fish here in america will only eat plankton. Remove the plankton and eventually the carp who do have a voracious appetite and will eat more then bass in a single sitting (assumption based on owning koi and goldfish) will eat themselves out of house and home eventually dying. Leaving behind the only remaining things left...bacteria and nutrients. I know my koi ate algea off of their gravel, by mouthing it, chewing on it and spitting it back out.
So yes bass will eat forage fish and out compete those native predatory fish, carp will decimate everything.
I've never seen freshwater jellyfish, but the biologists here are very concerned that the carp if introduced will eat the freshwater jellyfish. The jellyfish are found in Waterman Lake, Lake Mishnock, Lower Sprague Reservoir, and peep toad pond. If they exist anywhere else in the state then they are undiscovered. So jellyfish here in freshwater are very rare, so carp can potentially wipe out the freshwater jellyfish population. Bass will not eat them, and it is unknown if the carp will.
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Where as large mouth bass, will only eat these forage fish, or forage creatures such as crayfish. So large mouth will kill out the forage fish, but carp can wipe out entire ecosystem from plant matter to plankton. Fish such as the paddel fish here in america will only eat plankton. Remove the plankton and eventually the carp who do have a voracious appetite and will eat more then bass in a single sitting (assumption based on owning koi and goldfish) will eat themselves out of house and home eventually dying. Leaving behind the only remaining things left...bacteria and nutrients. I know my koi ate algea off of their gravel, by mouthing it, chewing on it and spitting it back out.
So yes bass will eat forage fish and out compete those native predatory fish, carp will decimate everything.
I've never seen freshwater jellyfish, but the biologists here are very concerned that the carp if introduced will eat the freshwater jellyfish. The jellyfish are found in Waterman Lake, Lake Mishnock, Lower Sprague Reservoir, and peep toad pond. If they exist anywhere else in the state then they are undiscovered. So jellyfish here in freshwater are very rare, so carp can potentially wipe out the freshwater jellyfish population. Bass will not eat them, and it is unknown if the carp will.
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