Sterile Carp effect on Lake

[Catch and Grease]

Sterile Carp were recently introduced into the Lake I fish most often, this Lake has an extremely high amount of vegetation. For decades they have drawn the lake down every so many years in winter to help kill the vegetation.

 

I guess they finally gave up on that and have now introduced grass carp into the 3,500 acre lake.

 

How will this affect the bass fishing in the years to come, do y’all believe grass carp are a benefit to a lake that has too much vegetation?

 

The primary plant in the lake is fanwort, does anyone know how well Carp remove fanwort?

[Columbia Craw]

All I have to offer is a horror story.  My home lake was a healthy fishery with a lot of vegetation.  Home owners and  those fishing stocker trout complained. The fish and game people attempted to establish a ratio of white Amur to acre.  Instead of 2800 to stock, they dumped 28000. 
 

I two years the soft grasses were gone. I mean gone like sheep graze a meadow. Then went all the reed beds and dollar pads. So went the bluegill.  With no vegetation the water had no natural filtering.  
 

Finally came the pad fields which were decimated and the root wads rotten a filled the bottom with black stringy rotting crap.  So the sterile carp weren’t so sterile.  The lake still has a substantial population. Algae blooms are common.  The entire ecosystem was upset. Rock bass and bluegill are extremely rare and crappie are stunted.  Bass numbers are down and spawns have not been as productive.  
 

I hope this is not the outcome on your lake. The lake no longer supports stocker trout. 

[Catch and Grease]

I wish they gave more information on how many Carp per acre were put into the lake. 
 

The only information is this sign they stuck in the ground lol

 

[N Florida Mike]

We put some in our lake around 7-8 years ago. They initially ate all the southern Niad which was a good thing. They have not done much if anything with the eel grass.

 Real Big bass have completely disappeared in the last couple years though but I suspect it’s the otter(s) that did that. 

The other negative in the same years is all the black algae we now have. Never had it before the carp . Not sure if there’s any correlation but it’s a strange coincidence.

The few carp we have left are HUGE. I mean like 50-60 pounds. They don’t seem to be reproducing .

Not sure I would stock them again…

Good luck with your situation…

[gim]

I personally don’t think that adding a new, unnatural species to try and control something else is ever productive without any added new problems. They would probably be better off just trying to control the vegetation with a herbicide.

 

Many lakes here are sprayed in spring (early June) with a herbicide to control vegetation. Eventually it grows back as the summer progresses.

[Glenn]

@Columbia Craw Are you talking about Silver Lake?  You know, the one that used to pump out 8-pounders routinely before "sterile" carp were introduced?

 

Those carp were supposed to have a max life expectancy of 20 years.  They were introduced 30 years ago.  Today, the lake is overrun with carp, and the entire ecosystem has been ruined.

 

"Sterile"?  There's no such thing!

 

A colossal screw-up.

 

[Columbia Craw]

That’s exactly the Lake I was referring to.  They need to rename the lake to Stool Lake.

[Glenn]

That's appropriate.  They destroyed a healthy trophy fishery and turned it into a mud pit.

[Woody B]

My Dad's neighbor got 8 "Sterile" Carp for his 1/2 acre weed infested pond.  Except for the carp there's nothing in there except Bluegill.  I'm interested in seeing what the Carp do for the pond, and if they somehow multiply.   

 

There's a lake in Eastern NC that pretty much got overran with Carp. NC Wildlife stocked Bluegill.  They're suppose to eat Carp eggs.  I can't remember the name of the lake, but will try to look it up later.   

[Captain Phil]

Our experience with so called sterile carp has been a disaster.  Around thirty or so years ago, those carp were stocked into the Harris Chain.  In those days they had no idea what would happen.  All they knew was they had to do something about the hydrilla. What happens is the carp eat everything both good and bad.  The carp grow huge while this is happening.  I have seen grass carp in the Chain nearly 40 pounds.  After they eat all the hydrilla, they start eating whatever they can find.  This leaves the lake totally devoid of cover, the water turns turbid and fishing declines. It got so bad in Lake Yale they tried to fence off the shoreline reeds so the carp couldn't get to them.  Eventually, they had guys in airboats physically remove the carp.  Today most of the carp are gone and the lake has recovered.

 

Around the same time, the local Water Authority decided to bomb the entire Chain with chemicals.  The State declared war on hydrilla and vowed to remove it at all cost.  The County Mosquito Control division was given the task.  You can imagine how that turned out.  It took nearly twenty years for fishing to recover from the carp and the chemical onslaught.  Today the hydrilla has returned.   The State took aquatic plant control out of the hands of the locals and gave it to the Fisheries Division  who are now managing the hydrilla.  The current state of the Chain is better than I have seen in many years.  

 

Grass carp and chemicals look like a quick and easy fix.  There is no easy or cheap way to manage a fishery.  It takes money and informed expertise.  Taxpayers don't want to hear this, so you have these ill-fated disasters.  I hope this doesn't happen to your lake.  For my experience, I would find a new place to fish.

[MAN]

They have been doing that for a long time down here in Texas.  All I can say is (and I think I am quoting Jurassic Park)......Nature finds a way.  There isn't a muddle puddle down here anymore that doesn't contain a carp. 

[Captain Phil]

I think it depends upon who's managing the lake.  In the early days, no one knew the optimum number of grass carp to stock per acre.   Someone in control at the State capital heard that carp ate hydrilla and they flooded the lakes with them.   I'm pretty sure they would have stocked great white sharks if they thought it would do the job better.   In the name of invasive species, Florida made every mistake that could be made.  Today things are quite different.  There is still hydrilla spraying going on, but it's being managed not totally eradicated.

 

For those who don't know, Florida's has a bigger problem with hydrilla than most States as our winters don't get cold enough long enough to kill back the hydrilla.   Without control of some kind, the stuff will continue to grow until the entire lake is topped out.   That is worse than no cover at all.

[TnRiver46]

Always bad