nutritional forage for Bass (and other minnow eating fish)

[Al Agnew]

The "wild" horses on Current River are a pet peeve of mine.  It certainly isn't sound ecological science to allow them to remain, it's a bunch of people who love horses and either don't give a crap about the ecosystem or don't believe the science...but they have screamed loudly enough that the Riverways people don't want the hassle anymore of convincing people they shouldn't be there.

[Old plug]

I do not regard Bass as MINNOW EATING. White bass,crappie those are really minnow eating to me. I  regard  Black bass as a predotor that will take whats handy and can be stuffed  into their mouth.

[MOPanfisher]

Al every time I said that the horse lovers around me came unglued.  Still true though.

[MoCarp]

5 hours ago, SpoonDog said:

Maybe we shouldn't make management decisions based on youtube videos?

 

No, because there are many different reasons why a fish would be skinny.  Anglers watching bass chase down carp, catching bass with distended stomachs full of baby carp, catching fish that are puking up baby carp in the boat- that's anecdotal evidence.  A high school kid doing a science project and finding loads of baby carp in bass stomachs is anecdotal evidence.  You're picking one possible explanation to the exclusion of all others, and insisting a fishery ought to be managed based on your unsubstantiated claim.   As you've said- carp have been around 140 years and in all that time with all those diet studies there's never been any indication they make up a significant proportion of bass diets. 

 

 

Only if carp make up a significant proportion of bass diets.  There's no reason to think they do, because carp don't show up in bass stomachs.  Three and a half ounces of sheep testicles have 26 grams of protein, 380 mg of Potassium, and 26% of my recommended daily allowance of Phosphorous.  But in order to assimilate that nutrition, I have to eat balls.  Their nutritive value unless I put 'em in my mouth, chew 'em all up, and get 'em down in my tummy-tums.  If I woke up tomorrow morning and all of the sheep testicles all over the world were gone- if there were no chance of ever eating a sheep testicle again- I wouldn't starve to death.  Because I don't eat sheep testicles. 

From the diet studies I've seen common carp are the sheep testicles of the aquatic realm- yeah, they're around; yeah, you can eat them, but no one's knocking down doors to get at 'em.  If bass aren't eating carp, I don't understand the value in spending money and resources investigating whether they'll starve when something they weren't eating in the first place is removed from the system. 

 

 

(sorry Phil).

<--owner of APC Media I created that video, I also have tons of raw video of carp eaters too

bass get skinny with a big head because they are not getting enough food, again I would love to see studies done as to the impact of massive fish removals via Bfing and its effects on the biome as a whole... but you say they would be bad science because diet studies have already been done, I post numerous anecdotal claims of predator fish showing signs of malnutrition...when shad seem to be in vast numbers and you debate (laughably) what the definition is of anecdotal evidence is and fisheries people should ignore what people are seeing 

Something eats baby Buffalo and common carp, removing them will have impacts.... it will be interesting to see when studies are done...there are other state studies on whats eating eggs/larva/YOY but thats there not here..

as far as your diet requirements, thats your business, but if/when they find out whats eating baby carp...I think your diet will be a  big helping of crow 

as far as who and how many people fish for common carp you are ether naive or being disingenuous as more anglers fish for The common carp or European carp (Cyprinus carpio) than do Muskie and people don't eat them either.. carp angling is a multi Billion dollar industry that will be far more than that here in the USA, why? you can buy every high end carp kit on the market, and it will not cost a fraction that even a cheap bass boat cost, don't need a gas hog truck to pull it or all the other associated costs

 

as far as the definition of anecdotal evidence is: Anecdotal evidence is evidence from anecdotes, i.e., evidence collected in a casual or informal manner and relying heavily or entirely on personal testimony. 

[MoCarp]

4 hours ago, Al Agnew said:

The "wild" horses on Current River are a pet peeve of mine.  It certainly isn't sound ecological science to allow them to remain, it's a bunch of people who love horses and either don't give a crap about the ecosystem or don't believe the science...but they have screamed loudly enough that the Riverways people don't want the hassle anymore of convincing people they shouldn't be there.

you can blame movies like hidalgo for that, or the round ups for the glue factory out west....

3 hours ago, Old plug said:

I do not regard Bass as MINNOW EATING. White bass,crappie those are really minnow eating to me. I  regard  Black bass as a predotor that will take whats handy and can be stuffed  into their mouth.

something is eating all those baby carp/buffalo, which taxonomically are hard to differentiate (key out) from many "minnow" species in a stomach evaluation until they are larger

a problem for lots of critters and plants have until they reach a certain age, I still remember hauling around my taxonomy class books in University, the Steyermark being particularly heavy

[tjm]

Didn't I read that carp eat their own eggs and larvae to the point of being self regulating? I have wondered if they consumed all the mussels and crayfish babies, maybe? Rainbow trout are just as non native as the carp ain't they?

Do carp successfully spawn in the Ozark streams with the fast flow and little vegetation?

[MoCarp]

10 minutes ago, tjm said:

Didn't I read that carp eat their own eggs and larvae to the point of being self regulating? I have wondered if they consumed all the mussels and crayfish babies, maybe? Rainbow trout are just as non native as the carp ain't they?

Do carp successfully spawn in the Ozark streams with the fast flow and little vegetation?

common carp seem to get out competed by buffalo in our ozark streams, in spring river and shoal creek I catch more buffalo and red horse than commons at about 10-1 below Truman dam in early spring I have caught just a handful of commons vs hundreds of buffs and native suckers

yet in the white river chain its commons,  I think buffs can handle the "big river" environment better than commons..but clearwater ozark waters less so, rarely catch a buff in TR/TANEY/BS or Stockton for that matter, but below Stockton dam buffs dominate..could be where they buffs spawn perhaps...

No trout are native to Missouri as far as I ever read, browns are a top 10 invasive ironically along with LMB and Common Carp

[MoCarp]

I always get slammed when I suggest the huge amounts of fish that get removed by stabbing methods

here is a single Tourney that boasts dumpstering 287k pounds of fish...thats TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS IN ONE TOURNEY

'Over the past 33 years these participants have broken the previous World Record set out in California for the most fish by a bowfishing tournament sixteen times. They currently hold the world mark at an astounding 278,871 pounds!"

 

http://www.glbc-caseville.com

[SpoonDog]

I can google photos of flatheads eating basketballs.  That doesn't mean basketballs are an important food item for flatheads or that catfish population health is dependent on basketball density in Missouri streams and reservoirs.  It just means that sometimes, for whatever reason, flatheads eat basketballs.  Evidence that an event occurs is not evidence that it occurs frequently.  You've provided evidence bass eat carp, and that's great.  But what you need to do is show bass are so dependent on carp they'll also be harmed by bowfishing.

You showed carp are more nutritious than rainbows, and you're probably right that a bass would eat the most nutritious food item available.  Which explains why they don't eat carp- they ring in around 860 calories/gram when you factor in bones, scales, and spines, while sunfish ring in around 1100 calories/g and gizzard shad around 1220 calories/g.  If carp aren't the most nutritious food item around there's no reason to suspect they'll be favored by bass, which is awesome because they're not- not in Stockton, in 2001, before bowfishers "decimated" carp populations, when carp were still abundant and bass could've eaten them, but didn't. 

What were they eating?

Shad and sunfish.

Quote

below is a Typical bass from lake Wee-Ma-Tuk in Cuba, Illinois
They have a keep and destroy rule on Common Carp....

http://www.weematuk.net/Fishing.html

 

I'm glad you know the definition of anecdotal.  I hope you understand the definition, 'cause it's gonna get real important, real quick.  When you see that photo of the skinny, typical fish, it definitely raises eyebrows.  Then you visit the website.

 

It's really interesting that out of all the photos on the website, the "typical" fish is far and away the skinniest.  All these fish- the twenty healthy looking ones and the one skinny feller- all came from lakes with keep and kill regs for common carp.  So what's the relationship between healthy bass and common carp, and why should anglers ignore what we're seeing...

That's the trouble with anecdotal evidence, bud.  Because it's gathered informally and relies largely on personal testimony, it's really susceptible to subjectivity and bias.  Scientific evidence attempts to put the subjectivity and the biases on a shelf to determine what's actually happening as opposed to what we think is happening.  It's the best BS meter we've come up with to date.  Anecdotal evidence isn't always bad - nor is it always objective.  That's the difference, that's why they're not interchangeable.

[MoCarp]

SpoonDog, Sorry that your sport of Stabbing fish for compost is under a microscope

The reality that the the Myth of removing carp and buffalo makes bass or other game fishing "better" is melting away right in front of you.

no matter how you slice it common carp have more Lunker building goodness in every bite than even rainbow trout, you cannot wish away.

Removing such vast amounts of fish from a biome with out some negative results is a myth, Over harvest has collapsed more fisheries world wide.

your bias show through because you say even LOOKING AT the effects of stab harvesting mass qualities of common carp/Buffalo as prey items is "bad science" because its been done before...no study has been done on the effects of over harvesting common carp and buffalo, it has been done on alligator gar and we all know where that has and is leading..the recent aging of the Texas record alligator gar shows it was 60  years old! let me repeat that SIXTY YEARS OLD! unlike a 10 point buck, you can't replace that fish in your lifetime, how old is a 30# common carp? or 40# buffalo? is it bad science to look and see? 

the definition of science is "the search for truth" if your so confident in the outcome then why do you balk at even looking?

how fast would bass fishing collapse on our white river chain of lakes if you removed 287k pounds of bass in just one tourney? and every person fishing for bass tossed everything they caught in a ditch on the side of a road, or in a barrel at the boat ramp?

as far as the nutritional value of sunfish....see below..trying to find it for gizzard shad but have not found a source anywhere perhaps because humans don't eat shad

 

preforming a Gastric lavage on any fish to see what they eat can tell you a great deal...... baby carp are usually listed as "minnows" and can often be confused with YOY bluegills or other sunfish in the acid bath of a LMB stomach, perhaps more effort will be made to see what eating all those one inch baby carp and buffalo  

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CT6FErdeslg <--blue cat Gastric lavage  yup they find carp

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XnUbvF3qqXU   <--LMB Gastric lavage can't tell what they are finding