Bass Fishing Jul 2018 | Page 18

COLUMN FOR THE RECORD COLIN MOORE Eat More Carp GILBERTSVILLE, Ky. (AP) – In an effort to eliminate the growing infestation of Asian carp in the Tennessee River chain of lakes, federal fishery managers have announced plans to stock Kentucky Lake with killer whales, a natural predator of the invasive fish. U.S. Fish and Wildlife spokesman Carl Heller said … O 16 kay, more fake news. But maybe killer whales wouldn’t be such a bad idea, as nothing else seems to be working when it comes to getting a chokehold on Asian carp. It’s a shame. Considering all the great fishing holes there are, bass fishermen otherwise never had it so good. There are bass in waters where there didn’t used to be bass, and lots of them. The problem is that there also are Asian carp, and lots of them. The intruders – silver, bighead, grass and black carp – are well on their way to becoming the dominant fish in the Mississippi River Basin. Originally import- ed by government agencies and fish farmers as a possible deterrent to the spread of noxious aquatic weeds, they’ve homesteaded all the rivers surrounding the Great Lakes and are just a lock or two from entering Lake Michigan. Pick a river: Every time the Mississippi, Missouri, Ohio, Tennessee, Osage, Neosho, White, Red, Cumberland, Ouachita, Yazoo and lots of others get out of their banks, more sloughs and feeders are stocked with Asian carp of one sort or another. It wouldn’t be such a big deal, except Asian carp have some nasty habits not shared by their European cousins, which were introduced to American waters in the latter part of the 19th cen- tury. Asian carp aren’t like other invaders such as gobies or zebra mus- sels, which, from an angling perspective, turned out to be not so bad. The saving grace of plain old German carp is that they generally behave themselves and don’t do much more than muddy up shoreline waters when they’re spawning or scrounging around the bottom for food. Asian carp, on the other hand, compete with native species for food and leap out of the water a lot, especial- ly when startled by an approaching boat. It’s more than annoying to be cruising down the lake at 50 mph and get slammed in the head and chest by a silver carp that weighs 35 pounds or so. The best thing that’s going to happen to you is a concussion. A Yen to Travel A mature female Asian carp can pro- duce hundreds of thousands of eggs a year, and even if only a half-million or so are fertilized, that’s still a lot of carp. These are “free spawners,” meaning that once fertilized, their eggs are borne through the water of a river or big lake by current for several miles until they hatch and begin their mission of adding to the biological disaster. Baby carp compete with the young of other species, such as shad and bass, for plankton of one sort or another. As they get older, they become bass food, at least up to the point where they reach about 15 inches in length, which doesn’t take long. At that point they’re pretty much bulletproof. Asian carp have the potential to be prolific spawners, but certain environ- mental conditions must be met. Sustained flowage and the proper water temperature are the biggest factors. In 2015, all the stars aligned at Kentucky Lake for carp to spawn successfully, and they did. Since then, however, fishery technicians haven’t found evidence of carp spawning in the massive lake, nor in neighboring Barkley. It’s the nature of an Asian carp to go upstream. Wherever there’s a lock, there’s a portal for Asian carp to reach the next waterway. Last summer, silver carp were discovered in Pickwick Lake, the next reservoir above Kentucky Lake. Carp DNA also has been detected in water samples from upstream at Wilson, Wheeler and Guntersville, though no carp have been captured in those lakes yet. If things stay as they are now, the fish will keep moving on to Lake Chickamauga and beyond. In the Cumberland River, which creates Barkley, Asian carp have been detected as far upriver as Old Hickory Lake north- east of Nashville. What Next? The genie is out of the bottle; the horse is out of the barn. There’s probably no way to get rid of Asian carp complete- ly. A natural control such as a predatory fish that likes to eat carp might help, but the problem is finding a fish that sticks to carp, and doesn’t eat bass. A useful par- asite might come along, but, here again, how do you stop it from infecting game fish, too? History shows that whenever such well-meaning efforts are undertak- en to correct one blunder, they create bigger predicaments. The story of the spread of Asian carp in U.S. waters is a prime example. So far commercial fishing has been the most effective control. Asian carp are good to eat, and there is a growing inter- national demand for them. In 2016, com- mercial netters on Kentucky and Barkley lakes and environs caught about 2 1/2 million pounds of carp – mostly from shallower, easier-to-net Barkley where FLWFISHING.COM I JULY 2018