New Article: The Consequences of Planting Grass Carp

[Glenn]

It's not all roses and butterflies...

 

https://www.bassresource.com/fish_biology/grass-carp.html

[MN Fisher]

Ya - Tonka has a yearly tourney that's specific for carp...and all carp caught can NOT be returned to the water.

[Bluebasser86]

They've wreaked havoc on one of my favorite smaller lakes. Use to be full of grass, now there isn't a strand of grass in the lake. I need to start making night trips out there with my bow and trying to take the lake back. Only a 200 acre lake, myself and a couple buddies could make a big impact in a summer I'd imagine. 

[gim]

26 minutes ago, MN Fisher said:

Ya - Tonka has a yearly tourney that's specific for carp...and all carp caught can NOT be returned to the water.

 

When I was out there last weekend crappie fishing, a boat nearby caught a 25.5 pound carp.  It looked like a beach ball with fins.

[Team9nine]

They seem to be stocked in all the watershed lakes here as the first line of defense against hydrilla as I understand it. Seems like just some carpet moss and a few hard stemmed plants like lilies are the only thing escaping them. The fisheries vary from water to water, so hard to make any concise judgement on positive or negative effects. But I can say in the lake with the greatest population of them, their returns on FFS are pretty impressive and fun to watch 😆

[TnRiver46]

Carps be darned. Useless creatures, even the common ones 

[Choporoz]

I have spent embarrassing amount of time stalking and casting to movements in pad fields that end with gigantic carp finally jumping, as if to say, 'Hey, Dummy, no bass here...just us and the turtles"

[MediumMouthBass]

Interesting read, but for where im at the grass carp are the only thing keeping some places fishable.

So when im talking about grass carp im for them in some areas but against them in others.

Most of the bodies of water i fish are very small compared to the lakes some of the people on here fish, between 9 acres-160 acres. And most have had very bad aquatic vegetation, not all the places i fish have them, most just have regular carp.

But a few do have grass carp that were stocked by the state, usually have signs saying you cannot remove them and to release them back into the water you caught them immediately. The state says since they are sterile and wont reproduce they only stock a few into a lake or pond, the ones that have them still have some vegetation and lily pads off the bank or the back of the lake but thats about it.

Havent had much impact on the fishing yet (bass, pickerel, bluegill, crappie, and trout) but its too soon to tell, i guess we are their testers for their experiment with it.

But its a trade off, do you want the lake to be completely covered and unfishable? Or put these in and have the fishing quality go down hill over the years? Well since a few of the places that have them are stocked with tons of trout (The state of PA for fishing makes most of their money off of trout and they care about them more than the other fish or water life/water quality, in fact they would destroy great bass/panfish fisheries if it meant they could put trout in them) So after reading that you already came to the conclusion they put the grass carp in these places to keep the fishing open year round.

And heres the funny thing, the states Fish and Boat Commission's local office has a 30 acre pond right next to it and owns the property its on, its designated as a PA Big Bass Lake Program and has special regulations, well it gets so bad with aquatic vegetation that its unfishable from summer-fall, we are talking 90-100% completely covered at its highest point, but the state DENIED their own agency $5,000 to put the grass carp in it. No trout = Bass saved in PA, even though you can only fish it certain times out of the year its a nice place and has big bass so thats another trade off.

[Choporoz]

@MediumMouthBass, I used to hate a couple big pond/small lakes that would get choked bad in the summer.  Tough to get around and fish for a period, but they remain truly great lakes for bass.  I very much hope they don't ever get carp introduced. 

[Mobasser]

I don't like them. A few years ago I saw a huge one swimming close to the bank early in the morning. It looked to be three feet long. 

[TnRiver46]

Herbicide kills grass just fine, screw carp 

[gim]

Occasionally I see bow fishers out for them at night.  They usually are using a jon boat with a platform and flood lights up front.  I say shoot as many as you can.

[MediumMouthBass]

3 hours ago, TnRiver46 said:

Herbicide kills grass just fine, screw carp 

Chemicals arent the answer either, both options are no good. - Source

My favorite lake to fish had a great smallmouth and largemouth population, days of catching 10-20 nice sized ones were very common. Last season it had more grass than usual grow around the bank so they used or sprayed something and shut the lake down for a week, well i only caught 3 largemouth and 1 smallmouth for the whole year of fishing there, the panfishing is almost non existent now too. The parking lot used to be filled 2x past capacity and now is barely even 1/3rd.

This was a very great and popular lake for fishing and now its like a ghost town in the old wild west.

[Bankc]

I've got a good carp recipe if anyone is interested.

 

Take a carp, whole, and season it with salt, pepper, and oregano.  Then bast the skin in a 50/50 mixture of olive oil and butter.  Use some twine to sandwich it between two cedar planks, soaked in water for at least 30 minutes.  Put on a spit and rotate constantly over an open fire for 18 minutes.  Cut the twine, toss the carp, and serve the cedar planks with horseradish sauce.  

 

Good for nothing fish...

[TnRiver46]

1 hour ago, MediumMouthBass said:

Chemicals arent the answer either, both options are no good. - Source

My favorite lake to fish had a great smallmouth and largemouth population, days of catching 10-20 nice sized ones were very common. Last season it had more grass than usual grow around the bank so they used or sprayed something and shut the lake down for a week, well i only caught 3 largemouth and 1 smallmouth for the whole year of fishing there, the panfishing is almost non existent now too. The parking lot used to be filled 2x past capacity and now is barely even 1/3rd.

This was a very great and popular lake for fishing and now its like a ghost town in the old wild west.

I don’t like them spraying either, wish they would never do it. But it kills grass and is then gone (ish). Herbicides are used successfully across the map for veg control

 

granted all my personal experience is on massive watersheds, we have no small lakes 

[Choporoz]

I don't like that they spray my lake, either.  (Not the ones I mentioned earlier). 

   They already sprayed a couple weeks ago.  I think if they feel the need to spray, doing this early does not seem to hurt all too much.  First growth was only 12"-18" or so.  I will be pulling slime off my lures for a bit longer, but new growth will start showing pretty soon.  I am told that this lake, like many (most?) in NC are sprayed because of the power company, vice State Dept of Wildlife, or homeowner whining.  

[Bankbeater]

About 50-55 years ago we had a vegetation choked lake around St. Louis.  The thing was if you knew how to fish vegetation your could catch 5, 6, and 7 lb bass out of this lake.  A lot of people griped about the vegetation, so the lake got sprayed.  Then carp got added to finish what the spray didn't kill.  Now the carp population in this lake is self sustaining, the only vegetation I've ever seen has been lily pads, and the water is muddy year round.  Big mistake to add carp.

[Columbia Craw]

Grass carp ruined my home lake.  They changed the whole biology of the lake for decades.  Two facts you need to know.  Grass carp eat everything. They destroy reed beds, pad fields and more.  They are not sterile.  That’s a myth. The lake I’m referring to has grass carp now after years and years beyond the declared life span.  If you have grass carp introduced, kiss your bluegill population goodbye.

[2tall79]

"Grass carp ruined my home lake." 

 

Silver?

 

[GreenPig]

Just put eight 10" Grass Carp in my friends pond for vegetation control. $100 in Carp for 10 - 12 years of control or $60 - $100 for every month for 6 - 8 months of every year. 

[fin]

3 hours ago, GreenPig said:

Just put eight 10" Grass Carp in my friends pond for vegetation control. $100 in Carp

 

Carp sell for $100 for 8? 🤔💡💰

[Woody B]

On 4/13/2024 at 8:21 PM, Columbia Craw said:

 If you have grass carp introduced, kiss your bluegill population goodbye.

 

That's interesting.  NC stocked 78000 Bluegill in Lake Mattamuskeet to cut back on the Carp population.  They said Bluegill feed on Carp eggs.  This was "common" Carp, not grass Carp.  That may be the difference.   I've never been to Lake Mattamuskeet.  Apparently they still have a Carp problem.  They're working on some kind of plan to net a bunch of them.   

[GreenPig]

5 hours ago, fin said:

 

Carp sell for $100 for 8? 🤔💡💰

Yes, for 8 ten inchers. Smaller carp are cheaper but the bass will gobble them up.

[Pat Brown]

When I first got into bass fishing more seriously back in 2020, the 60 acre Lake near my house was so choked out with hydrilla. You're trolling motor wouldn't work near the marina you had to get out to the middle of the lake.  I don't know what they did, but there's no more hydrilla like that in the lake that I can detect.  There are definitely huge carp in the lake and huge bass in the lake, but the bass fishing hasn't been as good since they killed the grass. 

 

What I want to know is why lake management gets involved to begin with?

 

It seems to me that on some lakes without deep enough water to sustain months where vegetation grows a ton , it could be bad maybe?  But if you have deep enough water to chorale the vegetation pockets, should be fine right?

 

I guess I'm just not educated on the finer points of naturally growing submerged vegetation.

[gim]

15 hours ago, Woody B said:

Apparently they still have a Carp problem.

 

They are very difficult to eradicate completely.  On smaller bodies of water, what is usually done is that they drain the lake very low, and starve all fish of oxygen.  Then they will also treat the lake with a herbicide too in an effort to get rid of unwanted non-native plant life.  You end up killing off other fish along the way.  But you can start over and re-stock it with the fish you want.  It's sort of a "clean slate."  Obviously this only works on certain sized lakes.  You can't drain Lake Superior.

 

This is why it's just better to prevent it in the first place.  Much easier than trying to fix it later.