Flyfishing On The Dark Side

[trizkid]

Ok, I haven't said anything in a long time. Someone needs to have you checked. Why are you so angry?

Thats what your supposed to do...nothing angry there just the number one rule with asian carp...catch and kill

[ksbass]

Way to go Jeff. Those goofy eyed carp look like a blast. That is one huge fish.

We'll have to hook up in late April and hit the flats at Hillsdale. The commons are alot of fun too.

Troy

[HighPlainsFlyFisher]

Drop me a line anytime you want to go chase a few "golden bones" on Hillsdale or clinton later this spring. Most of my fishing partners are from the Springfield area so I'm usually going solo around home. Lakes are starting to melt as we speak....won't be long.

Jeff

http://highplainsflyfisher.blogspot.com/

[Justin Spencer]

Looked like a great trip Jeff, what a fish!

[HighPlainsFlyFisher]

I can't say it compares to a weekend floating a beautiful river like you've got out your backdoor and catching those perfect little wild bows Justin , but it definitely beats sitting home and watching the snow melt. Those fish just aren't quite as photogenic as a NFOW wild rainbow, but the bend they can put in your rod offsets that to some extent. Looking forward to my next opportunity to sneak away and spend a few more days down at your place , hopefully it won't be too long.

Jeff

http://highplainsflyfisher.blogspot.com/

[strangercreek]

The Wak is a fun river to fish. I finished off the year catching little Walleyes below the waterfall on a clouser. I know some big wipers and carp have been taken there also. It is still strange to me that the bigger wiper population is thought to be in Clinton yet the last two state record wipers were taken at the Perry spillway. I love fishing both spillways though. There are always gar visible in the Perry spillway as well.

Regardless of being fun to catch (I have never caught one), I am not a fan of the asian carp. They seem to be a real nuisance, worse than any other invasive species. I hate to see them proliferate in the waters around here. While they might take flies they are serious plankton eaters, and due to their large numbers, that can't be a good thing. I know a couple of guys who tear them up with bows, but I doubt they are making a dent in the population. Wasn't there a company in Lousiana that was working with canning and selling them with some success? (It seems like I read that somewhere).

The republican river below Milford in KS is an awesome river to sight fish for roughs (carp, gar, buffalo) and there are also nice smallmouth and wiper populations. The river is wadeable in several areas as well.

I think NE and Central Kansas are gaining popularity with Fly Fisherman more all the time. You have several lakes with nice spillways, as well as large flats which are great for sight fishing. I know I have basically lost interest in trout fishing over the last couple of years due to being busy and not being able to drive to the Ozarks, yet I can drive an hour and be targeting big fish, plus it takes pressure off the Ozark Streams (I am actually less than 30 min from Clinton and Perry, also both awesome places for mountain bikers if you are into that )

[drew03cmc]

Jason, I caught my personal best fish at the Clinton outlet and look forward to spending some time down there this year whenever I can.

[MoCarp]

just a heads up Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio) are not "asian" like the filter feeding "carp" bighead (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and the famous jumping (carp) from TV, ( Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) AKA "Silver Carp", Commons are not even distantly related, crappie are more closer related to black basses than commons are to the filter feeding bighead and silvers.

also as a side note: grass "carp" or White Amur, (Ctenopharyngodon idella) probably more accuratley called "Siberian Carp" still widely stocked by fisheries biologists accross the USA, infact in Florida its against the regs to take or harm in anyway any "grass carp"

on the note that anyfish be tossed on the bank, MDC RULE: "It is a violation to wantonly leave, abandon or waste commonly edible portions of FISH AND GAME" tossin ANY fish on the bank could get you a ticket at worst and IMHO bad manners and poor public PR......back in the day they tossed another "non native invader" brown trout up in the bushes on eastern brookie streams... OMG!!!!!

for those who havent read this before here'

s a bit of history

History on the Distain of Carp

by MoCarp .

The common carp, Cyprinus carpio, Native to Eurasian Carpathian Mountains, and domesticated and spread throughout Europe by the Romans, carp were first stocked as a food fish in the U.S. in the late 1870s during the end of Grant administration by the newly created Federal Fish Commission. They were then spread by state governments to most U.S. watersheds via rail in an effort to restore overfished rivers.

Public opinion turned against carp starting in the United States around late 1890’s (about 20 years after the first federal stockings) But carp remained popular in Europe to this day, why?

Reputations are shaped by public views-- just as the Carps reputation was shaped by events 125 years ago in the USA, then why was the carp not held in distain in the UK or Europe? It is a myth that Europeans do not have anything else to catch or have few places to fish, Northern Pike, many trout species (even our own rainbows and brookies)--Zander--"a walleye like fish"—even a mega Predator called the Wels Catfish, are available to fisherman from any walk of life, but Carp are still king by a wide margin with billions spent across the EU. Why?

Carp became a metaphor for all things poor—carp introductions was not meant as a federal institutionalization of fish farming or like the Brits planting of breadfruit trees as a cheap food source for labor populations of the English Empire's tropical holdings. Even like the potato in Ireland. These foods wealthy landowners considered foods that were low class, Only eaten by those who had nothing "better" to eat.

The growing post reconstruction animosity that developed over time toward African Americans in the south and upper midwest & Eastern European and Chinese immigrants on the Coasts around the same time of carp introductions-is well documented.

Naturally, any low income population subsists to some degree on hunted and gathered food sources to supplement more modern ways of working and earning wages to put food on the table. Unwanted items, became "poor mans fodder" chitins--fatback--possum--coon--and carp-- unwanted cuts of beef or chicken...plentiful and cheap---any people that ate them, where looked at in the same light--back then you fished to catch and eat--and if your a middle class man and caught some carp the proper thing was to give them to “that poor family down the street” a still pervasive attitude even today.

Hunger was an issue in post civil war south and its boarder states--the complete dismantling of the old south plantation cotton economy/ and the poor food crop production from played out old cotton fields took many decades before the average southerner was living as well as they did pre-civil war--carp where an abundant food possibility--that could be harvested with no more than a trot line an a bit of cotton seed cake--- a rational way to catch carp in southern rivers--many an African American family ate carp--and why not?- considering how little cost was involved and the poundage of quality protein that would feed the large families at that time.

Many lakes & streams where still distressed well into the 1950’s & less hardy bass and crappies even catfish were unable to compete the way carp and other fish can in contaminated waters because of the ability to take oxygen from the surface in low in oxygen environments due to pollution

In the USA stocking Carp was intended to supplement traditional food fishes as a sustainable food source in many lakes & streams to augment fish stocks. At the time of the first carp stockings many states did not like the idea of the federal government telling them what to do—the confederate civil war veterans, most who would have been in their late 30’s to early 50’s with all the resentments of reconstruction, many viewed the carp as carpet bagger or immigrants fish with all the distain that comes with associated politics. In the northeast a flood of immigration from Eastern Europe where carp had been part of there diet for centuries. In many ways public opinion on immigration today mirror those at the turn of the century.

Common carp quickly became considered a "poor mans fish" that’s was given to the states as a means to feed the poor minorities and immigrants. That along with the ability of the carp to dominate or take over distressed aquatic environments, was an uncomfortable metaphor for the northern business folk swooping down on the south to take advantage of new business opportunities (carpet baggers) or the huge wave of emigrants entering the northeast. it’s not surprising how the view of carp happened the way that it did

The Brown Trout also once had a negative public reputation but seemed to weather the negativity, were as the carp elsewhere did not--possibly because the numbers of browns where not as wide spread as carp--and as trout were not a major food source for those who subsisted to some degree on wild caught foods in areas where they where stocked, primarily African Americans and eastern European or poor whites -- ---Even today trout fishing in most areas of the USA if not the world are demographically upscale " meaning trout fisherman on the average have a higher income level " just look at an Orvis catalog and you can see what I mean--which is one reason browns never sank to the level of distain as the carp.

A proper game fish for wealthy Victorians was trout and the early rise of sport fishing was about the fly and the fish that could be caught on a fly. Then later-in the south’s warm waters--the bass--which was the southern equivalent –in fact southern old timers called largemouth bass "green trout" and the fish where much less available and rarer than carp at that time, remember this is before many large man made lakes that where built after 1930. Into the boom years of lake building 1935---1975 where almost billion surface acres of new largemouth and also carp habitat where constructed which coincided with the exploding sport fishing movement aided by the advent of spinning reels with monofilament fishing line. Up until post WW2 early sport fishing gear was generally expencive.

Only now in the history of fishing in the United States has an atmosphere of fishing just for the thrill of the fight has become the dominate view of those fishing today In the past you fished to eat, not for the sport, that idea popular with turn of the century era President and avid sportsman Teddy Roosevelt who was keen to enjoy the outdoors this was well written about in the press and generated much interest in search of sport. He so loved the outdoors he establish the National parks as we know them today.

Still you hear people say to you " why the heck would you want to fish for carp--bony things aren’t worth eating fish.” Old attitudes diehard. As you develop as an angler eventually the logic of why you fish kicks in with years of personal catch experience, even average size carp give the fight of a lifetime with many long drag smoking runs, isn’t that the point of fishing?

... now enter the growth of Euro-Carping over the last 15 years in the US ....

,

[troutfiend1985]

just a heads up Common Carp (Cyprinus carpio) are not "asian" like the filter feeding "carp" bighead (Hypophthalmichthys nobilis) and the famous jumping (carp) from TV, ( Hypophthalmichthys molitrix) AKA "Silver Carp", Commons are not even distantly related, crappie are more closer related to black basses than commons are to the filter feeding bighead and silvers.

also as a side note: grass "carp" or White Amur, (Ctenopharyngodon idella) probably more accuratley called "Siberian Carp" still widely stocked by fisheries biologists accross the USA, infact in Florida its against the regs to take or harm in anyway any "grass carp"

on the note that anyfish be tossed on the bank, MDC RULE: "It is a violation to wantonly leave, abandon or waste commonly edible portions of FISH AND GAME" tossin ANY fish on the bank could get you a ticket at worst and IMHO bad manners and poor public PR......back in the day they tossed another "non native invader" brown trout up in the bushes on eastern brookie streams... OMG!!!!!

for those who havent read this before here'

s a bit of history

Just my opinion, but I really think that there is a credible argument that wanton waste could be taken off the books when applied to bighead carp. It really seems to me that the purpose of wanton waste is to apply that law to game fish, not invasive species. I have a hard time picturing the people who sat dow nto create this law and saying "yeah, this law has to apply to all fish, including ones who can/will/may destroy and ecosystem."

I'm hoping that I catch one of these bastards and that an MDC agent see's me toss it up on the bank. It just seems to me that there is a double standard going on here, don't put the thing back, but at the same time don't waste it. Well, I really am not a fish eater. But, I really really don't want to see the rivers go down the tube due to a species that filters out all the plankton, thus eroding the food chain. Pretty messed up that one of my goals this summer is to violate a law, but I really want to get this off the books when applied to nuiscance species.

(7) No person who takes or possesses any wildlife shall wantonly leave or abandon any portion of such wildlife commonly used as human food.

I like that whole "commonly" part of the reg. Wiggle room.

(27) Game fish: Shall include the following in

which the common names are to be interpreted

as descriptive of, but not limiting, the

classification by Latin names:

(A) Ambloplites, all species of goggle-eye

(commonly known as Ozark bass, rock bass,

shadow bass) and their hybrids.

( Esox, all species commonly known as

muskellunge, tiger muskie, muskie-pike

hybrid, northern pike, chain pickerel, grass

pickerel.

© Ictalurus, all species except bullheads,

commonly known as channel catfish, blue

catfish, Mississippi cat, Fulton cat, spotted

cat, white cat, willow cat, fiddler cat.

(D) Lepomis gulosus, commonly known as

warmouth.

(E) Micropterus, all species of black bass

and their hybrids, commonly known as largemouth

bass, lineside bass, smallmouth bass,

brown bass, Kentucky bass, spotted bass.

(F) Morone, all species and their hybrids,

commonly known as white bass, yellow bass,

striped bass.

(G) Oncorynchus and Salmo, all species

commonly known as salmon and trout.

(H) Polyodon, all species, commonly

known as paddlefish, spoonbill.

(I) Pomoxis, all species, commonly known

as crappie, white crappie, black crappie.

(J) Pylodictis, commonly known as flathead

catfish, goujon, yellow cat, river cat.

(K) Sander, all species and their hybrids,

commonly known as walleye, pike perch,

jack salmon, sauger.

(L) Scaphirhynchus platorynchus, commonly

known as shovelnose sturgeon, hackleback,

sand sturgeon.

[Bwinkert]

Hey I'm from the KC area and I'm looking to head to KS to check out some of the spillways to do some rough fish flyfishing. Anyone interested?

you can shoot me an email at Bwinkert@comcast.net

Brad