Silvewr And Bighead Carp Sightings

[zipstick]

I have been fishing in the creeks that border the MO River in St. Charles county this spring. I have seen thousands of mostly silver and some bighead carp. They cruise pretty shallow so they are easy to spot. Are other anglers seeing this many carp across the state? I fear for the health of all rivers that enter into the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Let's hear about the numbers of these fish you are seeing around the area. I personally don't think the MDC is doing enough about this problem, and I have contacted them. No data was forwarded to me yet from them. nor was any plan of action.

[Outside Bend]

I have been fishing in the creeks that border the MO River in St. Charles county this spring. I have seen thousands of mostly silver and some bighead carp. They cruise pretty shallow so they are easy to spot. Are other anglers seeing this many carp across the state? I fear for the health of all rivers that enter into the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. Let's hear about the numbers of these fish you are seeing around the area. I personally don't think the MDC is doing enough about this problem, and I have contacted them. No data was forwarded to me yet from them. nor was any plan of action.

THEY'RE EVERYWHERE!!

Seriously, they are. I've been in a bunch of streams (and MO river) in central Missouri, and seen thousands. Behind wing dykes, at the mouth of streams, in streams like the Lamine and Osage- they're everywhere. I think it'd be safe to say they're the most common large fish in the river at this time, probably the largest component of the fish biomass, too.

And really, folks don't know all that much about them. I think it's still unknown where they spawn (if it's a few areas or along the entire river), or much about their life history. They just know they reproduce like rabbits, eat pretty much all the plankton available, and grow big quick.

As far as I know MDC doesn't really take data on them. And I'm not sure how much they really can do, anyway. All told, between MDC, USFWS, and the USGS, there may be 100 or so folks working on the Missouri River. Multiply that by the 600 or so miles of river in the state, the size of the river and all significant tributaries, and millions of carp in the river at this time, it's really a drop in the bucket. Even if you had folks out there full-time killing them, I'm not sure how significant an impact it would have on the population as a whole.

I think their are a few projects in the work looking at how they effect the plankton/prey base for other species, like shad and larval catfish, but I'm not sure how far along those studies are.

They're fair game for commercial fishermen, but there's really no market developed for them yet. Before the recession folks were looking at using them for fish sticks, as fish meal, and as a source for concentrated Omega 3 pills, but that research has sort of stalled.

I'm not sure how much more MDC can really do, it may be one of those things we'll have to just deal with until better solutions are developed.

[cwc87]

Last summer I had one jump in my boat below hwy 30 on the meramec and seen some in that area. Told a MDC fisheries about it and it seemed the air just defalated out of his lungs from is facial expression.

The last 3 years the Osage from Bagnell Dam to the Missouri river has been an explosive population of them. Couple weeks ago I caught word of some Ole boys shotgunning down and making a dent in the population on the osage river.

[Outside Bend]

Last summer I had one jump in my boat below hwy 30 on the meramec and seen some in that area. Told a MDC fisheries about it and it seemed the air just defalated out of his lungs from is facial expression.

The last 3 years the Osage from Bagnell Dam to the Missouri river has been an explosive population of them. Couple weeks ago I caught word of some Ole boys shotgunning down and making a dent in the population on the osage river.

Did you let the agent know?

[Al Agnew]

Just one more scary thing happening...I haven't seen them yet where I fish, other than the smaller streams running into the Mississippi south of St. Louis. But they are getting very numerous on those streams, and the scariest thing is that they are moving into faster, clearer, cooler water up toward the headwaters of these streams. I had hopes that they'd be limited to the slower, murkier stream sections, but it doesn't look that way.

And I have no idea what can be done about them. Maybe our only hope in the long run is that a limiting factor will eventually emerge. It's fairly common that whenever a new species moves into a more or less vacant ecological niche, they explode in population but eventually find some equilibrium with their habitat and the native species. But I'm not banking on it.

[zipstick]

I'd also like to know definitively what these carp eat. The mouth on a bighead carp is scary large. Doesn't look like the mouth of an algae eater to me! I did have one slam a jig last year on the Meramec near the Big River. Weighed in excess of 15 pounds, and I hear they can reach 50 or more. The explosion in the Osage really concerns me especially since the MDC seems to have very little data for which they can assess gamefish pops. both before and after carp infestations. I've been sent some electroshocking surveys taken by the MDC along the Meramec and it was very sketchy and limited, IMO.

Al, we need to get you appointed to the MDC.

[Outside Bend]

Paddlefish have pretty enormous mouths too, that doesn't really mean anything. If you have to maintain a large body eating itty-bitty little food items, it pays to have a big gaper. I've heard of folks taking them on tackle, I'm not sure if they get aggressive during spawning season or what.

The way it was explained to me, bigheads have a series of very fine gill rakers (like paddlefish), which act as seives to filter out plankton. Silver carp's gill rakers are more like sponges, filtering out water and leaving the plankton behind. Most native fish can filter plankton down to 5-6 microns, while these invasive carp can filter everything down to 3-4 microns, effectively undercutting the native fishes' food supply.

Would you mind sharing the Meramec data? I'm just curious to see what it shows.

[fisheye]

All,

Last time I fished below the dam at Carlyle Lake was 25 years ago. I caught Walleye, Sauger, Large, Small, White, Hybrid Bass, Crappie, Blue Channel and Flathead Catfish, and there were days that I caught ALL of the above.

June 11-13 was free fishing in Illinois. Talked my buddy that I used to go fishing with at Carlyle into going fishing at the spillway at Carlyle on Friday, June 11th. Got to the spillway at 5:30 AM and started fishing a white 1/4 OZ tube jig.

All I caught were those darn big headed carp. I was hooking the fish in their mouths, not snagging them. These invaders were everywhere. I kept throwing them up on the bank. There was a Chinese person fishing there and he did not want the big head carp, but he did want the 8 lbs drum I caught. What does he know that I do not know? Makes you think?

We stopped fishing at 8:30 AM because are spirits were really deflated. The best fishing spot within 50 miles of St. Louis had turned into a big headed carp wallow. The carp were striking at our lures!!!! There were so many of them that you could feel them come up and bump your jig.

I strongly feel that the carp will eat anything, not plankton, but the whole lower food chain including game fish fry, eggs, anything they can get in their mouths.

I really hope they can gene sequence this invaders and produce a toxin that can just kill these fish!!!

Sorry about the rant, but these fish will even force the gar out.

[cwc87]

I asked some fisheries guy's at MDC what can be done and he had a possible idea of having an attractant that the Asian carp likes and they were gonna try to decimated that way. I believe alot of experimenting and trial and error stuff is going on right now to get a handle on them. Seems like if somebody can come up with a plan and not be harmful to the other fish it could be a lucartive business (Asian Carp Killer for Hire) HE HE hE!

[Outside Bend]

I asked some fisheries guy's at MDC what can be done and he had a possible idea of having an attractant that the Asian carp likes and they were gonna try to decimated that way. I believe alot of experimenting and trial and error stuff is going on right now to get a handle on them. Seems like if somebody can come up with a plan and not be harmful to the other fish it could be a lucartive business (Asian Carp Killer for Hire) HE HE hE!

There's been some talk of using pheremones to attract them, as well as genetically engineering some fish to where they'll only produce males, or so they'll die before becoming sexually mature. Frankenstein stuff, but pretty cool.

I think one of the major problems with control currently is that there aren't many effective ways for catching them efficiently, or harvesting them on a large scale. They tend to jump over nets, and what fish are capture quickly destroy that tackle.