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