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Member
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Location: Sth/side Chicago | Thanks for the info Carptracker. |
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| Kevin - what is that a picture of, on your avatar?? |
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Member
Posts: 67
Location: Sth/side Chicago | 25 Leach Lake strain Musky that I helped stock in the Barbee chain of lakes in Indiana. I couldn't find my walleye picture in my photo albums so I uploaded that until I could find an appropriate picture for the website. |
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| Hello Guys,
I'm from Canada and yes i agree that new species can
complicate our fisheries how ever :
1.I have eaten the bighead carp. it is one of the BEST light meat fish around.i believe we could help wipe out world hunger with em.
2.compared to the bio mass of the German carp i cannot see ANY species ever duplicating as much...and as well...we know that the German carp at BEST tastes like an oil slick...
3.the part about the bigheads jumping out of water and possibly
taking out our windshields [and decapitation]i will admit is a bit scary.
AGAIN! the chinese bighead carp is one of the sweetest neutral tasting fish that swims...get a few of those chopped upin yer freezer and get EVEN !!!!
df |
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| You haven't seen nothin' yet if you think that common carp can reach high biomass. I caught over a ton of bighead and silver carp today before lunch(with trammel nets) from behind a single wing dike - and there were lots left when I moved on. Bighead and silver carp already are by far the most abundant large fish in the lower Missouri River. Two of every three fish that I catch now are bighead and silver carp. The biomass of Asian carp we have is absolutely astounding.
Regarding eating them - I think there are a lot of walleye fishermen that would disagree with you about them being the tastiest thing that swims. I agree that the flesh of bighead and silver carp is pretty darn good, if you cut off the red meat, and learn to deal with the intramuscular bones. (also, the amount of meat you get off one fish is pretty poor, once you do all that - but the fish are a dime a dozen - I say it is ALL waste if you don't eat them). I don't know about world hunger. But these things will never be a very good game fish. They are pretty darn hard to catch on hook and line, because they are filter feeders. Snagging works for bigheads (but not very well for silvers) in places that allow snagging. You'd go pretty hungry fishing for bigheads or silvers with jugs and crankbaits or any other lure (although I know of at least five instances that they have taken a lure - get enough fish there and eventually you'll get one, I guess.) Also, based on research done in Germany in the early 80's, fish that are sub-littoral spawners and have pelagic fry that eat zooplankton are the fish most likely to be impacted by the introduction of bighead and silver carp. In the US, that means perch and walleye and sauger. Crappie and shad also have fry and fingerlings that are very pelagic zooplankton eaters, although they don't really qualify as sub-littoral spawners. |
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Member
Posts: 67
Location: Sth/side Chicago | Carptracker, two questions for you: 1st out of curiousity the fish you caught today, what did you guys do with them? 2nd, if you don't mind me asking, which DNR do you work for, I do understand if you would rather not say. |
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| We gutted a number of fish (to determine sex, feeding, reproductive status, etc). These were disposed of. The remainder of the fish were released alive. Missouri has a law against "wanton waste" that applies to all fish, including invasives. I do not work for any state. I work for a federal agency. The law also states that fish captured on a collector's permit can only be used for scientific purposes. We cannot keep or give away fish that we kill. Thus, whenever we have fishing equipment in the boat that would require a collector's permit to use, I do not allow any of my employees to retain fish. When we are not carrying gear that would fall under the collectors permit (for example, only tracking fish) and a silver carp jumps in the boat, I or sometimes one of the guys will sometimes take the fish home. We are very strict in following the rules. Failure to do so could result in the loss of the collector's permit, which would shut us down. I have had over 150 pounds of silver carp jump into the boat on the same day (11 fish), so there is more fish than we can use or give away during the warm months. The commercial fishermen here hate the bigheads and silvers because there is little market for the fish. There is a market now that pays fifty cents per pound for scaled filets, delivered to Saint Louis. If you figure the dressout on a bighead is about 20%, which is about right, then that comes to 10 cents a pound, fileted and delivered. You can't make much money on that, buying nets at $350.00 a crack, and getting rid of all the guts, and boat and truck time. When the water is low, a commercial can pretty reasonably plan on catching a ton or more of Asians in a day, with two or three guys in the boat (it takes a lot of time to get the fish out of the net without ruining the net - the large fish are pretty hard on the net anyway) |
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Member
Posts: 67
Location: Sth/side Chicago | Thanks for the reply. About all I can say is keep the info coming when you can. In this topic alone you have provided more info then I have seen in any magazine or newspaper articles on this topic |
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| http://glrc.org/transcript.php3?story_id=2197 |
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| thanks for the heads up carp tracker!!!!
if the bio mass is more than the german carp up here...we got a big worry on the way
and the sub littoral zone spawner thing ain't too pleasing to hear either
good work dude
df |
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| I just got my issue of bassmaster magazine today. I was quoted in it in an article on Asian carp. There was some information in that article that I can't vouch for. I was the only person quoted in the article, but some of the information wasn't from me. For example, there was the "eats 40% of bodyweight figure" (I don't know where that came from, it might be right, but I did not say it and the best info I have is that they eat 10 - 17% of body weight per day in reasonably warm water. The quote was not attributed directly to me, but a reasonable person might think so.) Also I said that we are concerned that the Asians might push natives out of wintering habitat - the article says they do that. I don't have any such data, although I think that it is likely. I have other issues with the short article This issue is readymade easy for the media to turn into hyperbole. That kind of thing drives scientists nuts and makes us want to not talk to the media. |
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Member
Posts: 67
Location: Sth/side Chicago | And I wonder why I cancelled Bassmaster? If you ever contribute a article or Info to the North American Fishing Club magazine let me know, I'm a lifemember of that one. |
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