nutritional forage for Bass (and other minnow eating fish)

[BilletHead]

Although they are a good food source to an extent you might want to tell the bass there are fish consumption advisories. They are only allowed so much a week and some places none of the bottom feeders.

 BilletHead

[MoCarp]

??? this thread is about fish eating fish...and that common carp are a better prey item nutritionally than trout which we know produce huge bass..and that removing too many carp can possibly have a negative effect on the carrying capacity of some waters

[BilletHead]

1 hour ago, MoCarp said:

??? this thread is about fish eating fish...and that common carp are a better prey item nutritionally than trout which we know produce huge bass..and that removing too many carp can possibly have a negative effect on the carrying capacity of some waters

         Was there anything that I said to make you think I was going off thread or what you posted?  Remember the old saying crap flows downhill? This is going to prove crap does and will flow uphill in the form of the top of the food chain. Carp are bottom feeders, yes the occasional one may take a minnow bait or fly or crawfish but in any waterway where there is silt you have carp sucking up mud looking for something to eat. Heavy metal and other pollution is in that mud and silt. So the carp carry this crap, the bass eat the carp and carry the crap. Next stage is something like the otter, eagle, bear in their respective area, the alligator in his area on and on all these animals carry the crap consumed by the lowly carp. The more these top species eat the carp the more crap it has in it's system. The older the fish the more crap it has. This toxin built up in their respective host cannot be good for them. 

   I just realized if you are not careful and transpose a couple of letters crap goes to carp and carp goes to crap .  Pretty fitting in my above statement don't you think?  I need a proofreader to make sure I have my crap and carp in the right context,

BilletHead

[MoCarp]

Salty today Billet? your point is taken, last time I looked not much mud in most white river chain of lakes, and carp commonly feed in middle and upper layers in the water column, its why we euro carpers use "Zig Rigs" to catch them "off bottom".....Bass and trout commonly eat crayfish and other bottom living organisms so technically they can be 'bottom feeders"  and yes I understand the toxin accumulation in top end predator fishes...

But I find it interesting when the "carp are bad people" veer uncomfortable topics off course

My contention is this... Removing too many common carp (and by default ) Buffalo, data seems to suggest it can have an overall negative effect on the forage base of fish like Largemouth bass

 

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/367-toxins-and-food-webs

[Smalliebigs]

1 hour ago, MoCarp said:

Salty today Billet? your point is taken, last time I looked not much mud in most white river chain of lakes, and carp commonly feed in middle and upper layers in the water column, its why we euro carpers use "Zig Rigs" to catch them "off bottom".....Bass and trout commonly eat crayfish and other bottom living organisms so technically they can be 'bottom feeders"  and yes I understand the toxin accumulation in top end predator fishes...

But I find it interesting when the "carp are bad people" veer uncomfortable topics off course

My contention is this... Removing too many common carp (and by default ) Buffalo, data seems to suggest it can have an overall negative effect on the forage base of fish like Largemouth bass

 

https://www.sciencelearn.org.nz/resources/367-toxins-and-food-webs

agreed......I have never understood just gigging or shooting a rough fish with a bow and just throwing it away. The whole crap about suckers overpopulating the streams if you don't allow gigging is complete BS for trout guys.

[MoCarp]

How many times does the wrong fish get gigged?....." oh snap that was a trout"......toss it back...or "OH SNAP that was a big ol smallmouth"......I am not a fan of gigging

[Smalliebigs]

1 hour ago, MoCarp said:

How many times does the wrong fish get gigged?....." oh snap that was a trout"......toss it back...or "OH SNAP that was a big ol smallmouth"......I am not a fan of gigging

I wasn't even trying to go there but, it happens more than you think.

 

I was told by someone with the MDC and a few other trout guys that gigging helps stop suckers and other rough fish from over populating the river and adversely affecting the trout specifically.

Which I found to be entertaining 

[MoCarp]

15 minutes ago, Smalliebigs said:

I was told by someone with the MDC and a few other trout guys that gigging helps stop suckers and other rough fish from over populating the river and adversely affecting the trout specifically.

Which I found to be entertaining 

a river or stream would have to be at or above carrying capacity, and thats assuming suckers etc are competing directly with each other...grey foxes and coyotes live in the same area, yet each fills a different biological niche, and when pressed most will not guarantee removal of all "rough" fish will make game fishing bigger and better....most renovations I have studied, usually claim successes when they remove ALL fishes then start from scratch...no-harvest after the renovation allows fishing to be a temporary boom, but the lake soon falls back and the lake gets renovated again..IMHO over harvest is the bugaboo..some waters can't sustain old school harvest levels....add source point pollution issues and is gets dicey...most trout are put and take not really fair to use a wild habitat management model...

[Al Agnew]

I know you're an avid carp booster, but to me this is kind of a non-issue.  I don't know of anywhere in the Ozarks at least where there is any real attempt to drastically reduce carp populations.  Angling pressure isn't going to do much, because there still aren't many anglers pursuing carp.  After the amount of time that carp have been in our waters, they have pretty much become a somewhat natural part of the food chain.  I'm certain that bass and other minnow-eating game fish feed on any carp they can swallow.  Whether or not the carp have more nutritional value than, say, shad or stonerollers doesn't really matter much, because nobody is trying to seriously cut down on the numbers of young carp in our public waters.  The fish will eat what they can, and if the habitat is suitable for a large carp population, they'll eat more young carp.  Maybe in some parts of the country, there are real efforts to remove carp (note that I'm not talking about the newer invasives like the silver carp), and there may or may not be very good reasons for those kinds of management.  Now if you're simply talking about liberal limits and liberal means of killing carp like bowfishing and spearfishing, I'd have to see if there is good data that such regulations are really having a significant effect on carp populations.  

[MoCarp]

3 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

 I don't know of anywhere in the Ozarks at least where there is any real attempt to drastically reduce carp populations.  

"bass pro national bowfishing tournaments" and numerous other tourneys on LOZ/Truman/Pomme de Terre/Stockton, and Tablerock over the last 5 years have removed hundreds of thousands of pounds of "roughish"  granted its anecdotal evidence, but posters on OAF have spoken on how the Buffs are not as thick on Truman and LOZ, numbers and sizes are down for the euro anglers that I know in this area, You would be surprised how many Euro and Fly anglers that chase common carp... there are more euro carp anglers nationally than Muskie anglers

 

3 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

 because nobody is trying to seriously cut down on the numbers of young carp in our public waters.  The fish will eat what they can, and if the habitat is suitable for a large carp population, they'll eat more young carp.    

Again anecdotal evidence in some lakes seem to show a less robust largemouth bass population (larger heads in relation to body mass) in lakes that have received a massive uptick of roughish harvest (bow fishing) lake Stockton here, and one that comes to mind is Lake Eufaula in Alabama

 

3 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

Maybe in some parts of the country, there are real efforts to remove carp (note that I'm not talking about the newer invasives like the silver carp), and there may or may not be very good reasons for those kinds of management.  Now if you're simply talking about liberal limits and liberal means of killing carp like bowfishing and spearfishing, I'd have to see if there is good data that such regulations are really having a significant effect on carp populations.  

lake Michigan, 22,300 square miles of surface area, a huge inland sea,  one lake Michigan area tourney boasts of a record 287k...by their local group alone, its having such an impact the Fly Fishing carp guides ( yes there are carp guides all over the USA) are complaining that this year their numbers were way down because of bow-fishing.....and bow fishing is way way bigger here than in MI.

I would love to see numbers tracked on harvest, but the practice of shoot and release is an un-enforced dodge of the 20 native fish harvest in Missouri, common carp are unlimited and were changed back when the push to slow the true asian carp, before commons were part of the 20 a day reg....only during tourneys do we have an idea on how many fish get taken, and the poundages are staggering.....

 

Black Buffalo are a only one fish a day rule like alligator gar in Oklahoma.... yet I can post pic after pic of Oklahoma Bow Fishing where numbers of buffalo are taken, many dumped at a boat ramp or tossed to rot in the sun by the side of the road. even here on OAF we have posters speak of fish tossed in dumpsters and barrels at boat ramps...

in closing more people enjoy carp fishing than the general fishing public knows, one reason I am on forums like OAF, I get calls from UK carp bait/tackle providers about our "emerging market"  here...new regulations are coming in states, as they become law I'll gladly post them up here...

we have a couple of "World Class " guide worthy Carp Fisheries here, they would get pounded to prevent carp being treated like bass and walleyes, if they get divulged, one reason I don't post personal captures anymore

The heart beat of American Carp Angling is in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, David Moore (owner big carp tackle & one of Outdoor Life's 20 best anglers on the planet) has done more for carp angling in the USA than about anyone I know..Al if your interested, I invite you (and anyone else thats truly interested) to a euro carp fishing social BCT is holding near the KS border,  the last weekend of October 27-28-29th..just PM me for details...

 

https://www.outdoorlife.com/photos/gallery/fishing/saltwater/inshore/2011/05/meet-20-best-anglers-planet

 

http://greatlakesecho.org/2017/08/09/anglers-target-bowfishermen-for-carp-decrease/

http://news.jrn.msu.edu/capitalnewsservice/2017/08/16/anglers-target-bowfishing-for-carp-decrease/

https://www.glc.org/dailynews/20170809-bowfishermen-carp