I think tuben2 put his Rock Bass article up right after I posted this. I read that too. Hmmm… we might be cooking up rock bass quite a bit this summer!
Can’t have them in my stream eating my trout and my trout’s food supply!!
Hey FisherMOM, That was a mere cooincidence. The rock bass turned out to be the species of he week on one of the forums that I subscribe to. They have some good articles that I like to share with everyone here.
well, Tuben2… it did confirm to me about the parasites. I didn’t know that they weren’t true bass though. My Dad call’s them Red Eye Bass. They are very cool looking fish and if they got to be 4 and 5 pounds.. they would be quite the fighters!
There are a couple of aliases that they have here are a few of them.
Other names: black perch, goggle-eye, red-eye, rock sunfish, goggle-eye perch
Different regions will have a slightly different name for the same fish. They are a pretty species though. We have some delicious recipes for them as well. Please feel free to check them out on our Recipe Board. You can also use some of the Perch or sunfish recipes for them as well.
AQUAMAN I’M WITH YOU ON THIS ONE CARP ARE SOME OF THE FUNNEST FISH THAT i HAVE CAUGHT. THEY PUT UP A GOOD FIGHT ON LIGHT LINE. I RARELY KEEP ANY BUT SOMETIMES FOR BAIT.
I support people euthanizing roundtail chubs and humpback chubs and all other native trash fishes in my area because CDOW and USFWS consider pike and smallmouth trashfish and euthanize them from all of our colorado waters when everybody wants them. they do that because of the chubs and suckers, so I support it if somebody kills them. I don’t kill them myself as it is illegal, but its not like I am mad at someone if they do. I would like to release them but since they are the reason (and USFWS and CDOW not listening to what anglers want) that we don’t have as good of pike fishing and smallmouth fishing that we could have. Trophy pike and huge smallmouth litter our banks thanks to USFWS and CDOW.
Its all a choice of what people in my area want; 10" rountail chub or 40" northern pike? For most people that choice is not too hard. But I release all fish I catch except for brookies in high mountain streams and walleyes. So no comment from me really.
I agree with JapanRon, if it is a regulation and they want you to not release them then I will put them out of their misery but if its ok to release them then I will. There is no need to just be mean for the heck of it[;)]
I just throw them back also, unless the department of fish and wildlife says we shouldn’t or the landowner asked me not to throw them back. I don’t see the point in just killing them just to be killing them though! This was a good topic, it makes you think! I like the kind of questions that make you think “What would you do?” [;)]
I think that this is really an indepth question. I am all for catch and release. Here’s my view however, some fish compete for other for food, space, habitat. If the trash fish in compeating with a more popular game fish, kill, but at the same token game fish and over populate so you might need to harvest some of those as well to help keep the population health
Maddawg
[;)]
I used to toss carp on the bank to get rid of some of them. Been a good while since I did that. Met a good friend who fish’s mainly for carp and goes to carp tournaments. I like the fight they put up too if they’re big enough. So if they’re not small enough to use as live bait for flatheads I’ll let them go so those who do fish for them all the time can. Gar now, I do toss a few of them on the bank but mostly let them go. I’m about to get aggravated with them because they’re in my good catfish holes thick these last two years, and as messed up as the weather was this year they showed up about a month early right when I should be catching some more flatheads. They find my live bait before a catfish has a chance to get it and I’ve lost a lot of good terminal tackle and even catching them I have to re-rig everytime.
I get upset with the people who toss 'em on the bank and let 'em rot. It litters the area with stinky rotting fish, attracts flies and makes for an unpleasant experience. If youre going to do that, at least have the common courtesy to dump them in the trash, burry them in your garden..whatever.
you said it right, carp will stur up the silt on the lakes and rivers, they will suck up the eggs off the fish beds and they will over populate every species in a given body of water if not kept in check…
I say destroy non native species.
goby are doing to perch today what carp did to trout some 50-75 years ago when they were introduced.
trout need clean water to breath. carp stur up the silt making the streams of S.E. Michigan in hospitable for trout. now the one prominate trout fisheries of south east michigan are dependent soly on trout implants every year. the natural trout streams are carp infested just days after the natural trout spawn…
My neighbors was all over my case for catching carp and planting them in my garden last year. I told them they had idea how many trout are in the lake I live on. this spring I took them over to the trout stream and showed them the 10’s of thousands of carp just in a quarter mile strip that normaly would be hatching trout…
once they saw that they were apualed. and grabbed spears and bows rods and reals, for the two weeks the carp was tearing up the trout stream they did not even put in a dent to the carp population…
they pulled out so many carp the carbage company fefused to pick up the trash in our neighborhood…
the problem with carp is that they live 50 years, they produce 10 thousand eggs per year each. after a carp reaches 3 pounds nothing eats them. they are free ranging breading scavaging bed robbing pest.
Goby do the same to the perch in the great lakes because the bread and feed on the same teritory perch do at the time when perch beds are most volunerable…
what happens to a dead 4-5 foot long carp? it lays dead on the bottom of the lake releasing the same toxics the carp was put in the waters to get rid of…
this is one of mans greatest fumbles when it came to taking care of fresh waters. they never made planns to remove the carp after it sucked up the toxins…
I forgot to mention there was a lake in Irish Hills Michigan some 25 years ago that once was one of michigans finest bass tournament lakes. it had became so over populated by carp that the bass tournies turned away from it. They drained the lake, and poisend every remaining hole that was holding fish. they kept the lake drained for 2 years to make sure the carp did not have any incubating carp in the remaining holes.
after the all clear was given they refilled the lake. it has been 20+ years and even after the replanting of natural native species the bass fishing quality has yet to resemble its former glory. needless to say the tournies have never come back…
I can tell you this to be the truth because I had a hand in on the extermination project.
At the time of introduction of carp, the polititions who planted them did not do their home work, not did they look in to the near future let alond the distant future.
the damage that these carp are causing will cost the american agriculture hundreds of billions of dollars over the next 25-50 years as the second generaton lays dead at the bottom of our comercial fisheries and the bait fish feed apon them and spread even more toxins in to our sports fish not to mention the store bought fish being caught out of the same waters we fish from and sell behind our local stores fish counter…
we have the opertunity right now to capture these carp and turn them in to cat food added with the 70% cerial we already feed our cats, the dosage will be to low to cause cats to come down with the cancers that take 15-20 years to incubate.
Well DavidG that was alot of history on the carp, but what the goverment did back in the 1800"s shouldn’t set the course for today. We all have our faverite species to fish for and our licenses and taxes on bait should reflect what we all would like to catch. I caught many carb as a young fella with a bow and arrow and enjoyed it. But times change and maybe some of the waters can be brought back to the native fish we enjoy catching today. There will always be carp, but we need to get a handle on areas where other fish can produce for the enjoyment of others. You state that they where introduced to feed a fish market. That is no longer the case today and the goverment should take another look at this issue. Seeing as you like to catch them, more power to you, just don’t expect us all to join in.
agreed, what our guest copyed and posted is an interesting peace of history.
I can tell you for a fact that just because an artical is in the history book available on a shelf some where dose not mean it is 100% acurate. It may have been as close to what they could discover in the short amount of time they had to do their studies.
today we know that our studies on nature now run duirng the corce of a mans coreer if he can afford it. there are people who spend an entire life time studing one single specie.
back then they had no idea what a long term affect on habitat minipulations would cause.
I cant deny that dams caused a great deal of problems for trout and salmon. and way back in the mid 1900’s they built dams with fish latters. in adition to adding ladders to existing dams. I live near a dam that once had a fish ladder. the ladder was removed because of the incoming non native species that are harmfull to the environment.
the one lake is but one of a hundred of lakes in michigan that were drained killed off and restocked because of carp.
in my opinion the common every day house hold fish aquarium is the most dangerous hazard next to toxic waist. I cant beleive how gown parents can think how qute it is to take their kids and a fish bowl and release the fresh water fish in to the big water. they must have went to sleep during the time they were studing ecosystems.
as for carp not eating fish eggs. well I can tell your for a fact that they do… I have caught hundreds of carp on spawn bags. I can tell you the names of other anglers I have fished with who have caught carp on spawn bags. I will agree that the carp do not spicificly hunt down fish eggs, they do how ever suck up every thing in thier path when feeding. they distroy beds when looking for food by sweeping the lake and river bottoms with their tails.
as for carp not rooting up plants, this is also true to the point in that they do not up root plants to feed. they do however up root plants when rolling on the shore lines waving their massive tail fins over and over, and when you add a hundred carp to the vegitation, you get the same affect as a hundred kids playing on a school yard slide. the gound is desturbed to the point to what ever it holding on is uplifted.
dont get me wrong, I enjoy fishing for carp hook and line. and if the waters were cleaner I would enjoy eating them as well. Carp is quite taisty when caught in clean waters.
nope carp are not native to north america…
In my life time I have seen the history books written and rewritten. I have also seen history books that were taught in elimentry school that were just plain false.
In my life time I have seen sicence books that have been ritten and then rewritten because longer studies showed what was first thought to be factual to be misleading or short sided.
todays high school graduate has more information available to them in their text then an entire collage had back in the mid 1800’s.
a simple digital watch has more scintific computer knolage than all of what existed in 1959.
dont get me wrong in thinking that the old ways are not better. in fact some are the best we have and computers cant begin to inprove some of the old tecnology. What had happened was that during the 1500 to todays time man figured that they could monipulate nature to his will. it is just recently (the last 20 years) that they have found that there are profound reprocussions to every thing we do when it comes to disturbing nature…
the one study our frend did miss was the history of chicago and their participation in the carp inplant. if he saw that his stomach would heave.
on lake erie there are now times of the year when you can not eat any fish near the canadian boarder because of a misterious disturbance of the lake bottom being turned up and releasing of naturaly found toxins in the lakes bottom. I bet if they realy wanted to find out what was stiring up the bottom, they might just find a carp…
I could do our guest studies for him… but then he wouldnt learn anything.
I was alive when they thought they made a tremendous acheivement with the fish ladders. and I was there to witness when one ladder had to be removed to keep other non native species from migrating up out of the great lakes.
Thanks for the history lesson !! Everyone has their own opion , and thats what this site is all about ! I , myself don’t care for the carp, cause I have seen them get in our lake when there was high water , and after a couple of years , our sunfish and bass spawning grounds were gone !! The beds were covered by silt that the carp kept kicking up off the bottom where the beds were !! The carp spawns close to the time the panfish do , and if you ever see the carp spawn ( several males swimming in a tight group around a female ) their tales are just tearing up the bottom I don’t belive they should be left on the bank some where , but used as a good fertalizer for your gardening needs , or as I use some , bear bait , but finding out that most of them have good taste and won’t eat them either !! As for Redhorse and suckers , they will meet my smoker !!!
Now this was my opion !!!
Carp arnt all that great either, ill start with an example i have, i have a goldfish tank, and as everyone knows carp and goldfish are directly related, i planted some bulbs in the water so i could have some live plants the stupid goldfish would pull up my bulbs everytime, still to this day i have no live plants, i cant get the bulbs to stay in the ground long enough to start to grow. these fish also will dig up my artifical plants, they are a bottom feeder they suck the rocks and such off the ground and spit out the non food items, this is how the plants get dug up, it is not that they are trying to dig up my plants it is that they are looking for food and happen to dig up plants while in the process.
I have a local example of a lake that is being ruined by carp, utah lake, when the pioneers settled utah valley they described the waters a clear blue and full of native fish and lots of plant life, not the lake is down from 6 native species to one and that one is federally endangered, the water is murky and muddy and there is almost no plant life except for reeds. there are on going studies on this lake but current estaments have the population of carp to ALL other fish in the water at 9:1.
Carp may not eat the eggs of other fish but they do span at the same time as other fish and in the same beds as the other fish, and they are very distructive in their spaning habbits, as flagman stated a group of males will surround one female and then roll around in the spaning beds thereby stiring up all of the other eggs, giving the eggs no chance at life.
and as for the carm not stiring up much setimate i have been carpfishing where i didnt have to cast out very far or deep, i knew when i was about to get a bite because i could see the setimate start to stir around my bait.
Now im not saying that the carp should be left on the bank, if you want to eat them thats fine, if you want to use them for fertilizer thats ok to, but i do think that their populations need to be kept in check, and the neatest way that i have heard of so far is by introudicing some females that have been modified so thew will still bread but their offspring will be streile.
if you are going to use carp as fertilizer you need to burry them befor the flies get to them. and at least 8 inches deep to keep the racoons from getting their sent and digging them back up.
you may want to keep the doggie doo doo away from the garden, way to much amonia in their droppings. and you wouldnt want to get the worms that are normaly ground born before residing in to dogs in to your radishes carots and taters.
cirtainly carp needed some one to stick up for them and you do a fine job… and if I were a criminal I would want you as my defence lawer.
carp do get a bad rap and as the on coming studies come in more and more carp are found to be the cause of many lakes failing.
as fish4fish has stated the carp are populating in numbers to the point that even they will not be able sustain thier own life because there wont be enough food for them to servive. when they start feeding on thier own dead they will sucumb to desease.
true the dams have stopped the migrations of many species but it did not stop the remaining species that do not migrate from spawing. the carp has. not deliberatly, they are just so big nothing eats them except bears and humans (most humans wont except Husane) and they compete for the same resorces as the other populations do at the same time as the others need it.
the smaller shallower lakes with out dams suffered first at the fins of carp. the bigger the lake the longer it takes for the dammage to apeare but at the same time the more prolific the carp become in larger environments.
as with any animal that has no checks and balances on land and in the water devistation is the end result. this case sinario has take place time and time again in the last 150 years. people just had no idea what introducing an animal to an ecosystem that had no natural preditors could to to a land or water scape.
the carp have been hidden for the most part for the last 150 years but now their numbers are exploading and in your life time you will see lakes more and more being drained to be rid of carp.