Originally Posted by
adam7456
There are different things in the works on how to control these fish. Most end up harming the native fish anyway. Considering the fish escaped from Mississippi, passed Kentucky, and decided to take of the Illinois river I'm hoping that the conditions in Kentucky are less than ideal for them and will help keep their numbers in check.
The Illinois river around Peoria IL is where the largest concentration of the fish are. Outside of that area the population is greatly reduced. That area must have the right combination of water temperature from the power plants and nutrients for the fish. They have implemented a heavy commercial fishing program in the river and it has helped reduce the numbers some. The huge fish, 10 pounds and greater, are rare to see now. The smaller fish are still there in large numbers though. My brother is a conservation police officer for Illinois and lives right next to the Illinois River upriver from Peoria. I've been on the river several times. Other than doing things that will kill off all the fish in the river I don't know anything reasonable that can be done to completely stop them.
For some reason the carp were dying off in large numbers this summer. All up and down the banks were dead fish. Hopefully a university or government agency is doing research on what killed them off and can use that as a way to target just those species in the future.