Asian carp/Kentucky lake

[mhall]

I have actually pondered in my mind if the federal government and the health industry wants to find a magic pill for Cancer. Yes in my heart I guess I want to believe they do but it is their biggest cash Cow is it not.

Now I didn't say I totally believe in that I said it's made me ponder...........

[Lowerider]

Let me rephrase...

The bigger question is why hasn't the full power of our state/federal gov't not been deployed to figure out why the carp went belly up? Seems we were given a gift. The carp problem in KY lake is a mere drop in the bucket to the overall problem and I'm not blaming our state for not coming up with a solution. Obviously there's a disease out there that affects these fish...meanwhile we're talking about carp tournaments. We put man on the moon; we can figure why a fish got a disease.

BUT, if you've lived here long enough or got involved in any political process to help protect our states resources you'd know why faith is lost with KDFWR. I have absolutely no problem going on record saying they have a greater interest in creating a new sustainable industry than protecting our native wildlife. And that should concern all of you. Politics at its best... Time will tell if the new head honcho really changes anything.

[crappiepappy]

Let me rephrase...

The bigger question is why hasn't the full power of our state/federal gov't not been deployed to figure out why the carp went belly up? Seems we were given a gift. The carp problem in KY lake is a mere drop in the bucket to the overall problem and I'm not blaming our state for not coming up with a solution. Obviously there's a disease out there that affects these fish...meanwhile we're talking about carp tournaments. We put man on the moon; we can figure why a fish got a disease.
BUT, if you've lived here long enough or got involved in any political process to help protect our states resources you'd know why faith is lost with KDFWR. I have absolutely no problem going on record saying they have a greater interest in creating a new sustainable industry than protecting our native wildlife. And that should concern all of you. Politics at its best... Time will tell if the new head honcho really changes anything.

IMHO ... the state/fed govt have bigger fish to fry, than worry about the asian carp infestation. Even if the carp problem gets cleaned up in KY, you'd have to totally eradicate every single one of them in every single waterway & pond ... or they'd be back in a matter of years. We also don't know if the deaths of those carp below the dams even WAS a "disease" ... could have just been a fluke "condition".

I doubt very seriously if the KDFWR has a greater interest in a sustainable industry with these carp. If they invade & ruin some of our best waterways, and sport fishing collapses due to their presence ... do you really think commercial fishing licenses are going to put the same amount of money in the coffers as all the in & out of state fishing licenses sold to people that fish those waters ??

We may have to be content with having their numbers "controlled" ... since there may not be a chemical or biological solution that rids us of JUST THEM. Remember, we imported them to keep aquaculture & wastewater ponds clean ... then floods put them into the main arteries of our waterways. We have to be careful with whatever methods get used to rid us of them, or even deplete their numbers to a point where they're not detrimental to the sportfish population.

... pappy

[clc]

FRANKFORT, Ky. Research indicates a condition similar to “the bends” in divers likely played a role in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Asian carp in two western Kentucky rivers last month The die-off of invasive silver carp happened in the Cumberland River below Lake Barkley dam and Tennessee River below Kentucky Lake dam “Preliminary results show they’ve got bubbles in the gills,” said Aquatic Nuisance Species Biologist Paul Wilkes of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “You can see it very clearly Gas bubble disease can occur in water supersaturated with dissolved gases, and biologists believe it is a contributing factor in this case Gas supersaturation is something that can happen below dams,” Wilkes said. “When a fish is breathing this water with gas supersaturation it essentially causes an air embolism in the gill, which is similar to a diver getting the bends. A gas bubble will get trapped in the gill tissue of a fish and prevent blood circulation.”

Complete article can be found on fish and wildlife web page, pick fish tab then the more tab.

[Moveon]

FRANKFORT, Ky. Research indicates a condition similar to “the bends” in divers likely played a role in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Asian carp in two western Kentucky rivers last month The die-off of invasive silver carp happened in the Cumberland River below Lake Barkley dam and Tennessee River below Kentucky Lake dam “Preliminary results show they’ve got bubbles in the gills,” said Aquatic Nuisance Species Biologist Paul Wilkes of the Kentucky Department of Fish and Wildlife Resources. “You can see it very clearly Gas bubble disease can occur in water supersaturated with dissolved gases, and biologists believe it is a contributing factor in this case Gas supersaturation is something that can happen below dams,” Wilkes said. “When a fish is breathing this water with gas supersaturation it essentially causes an air embolism in the gill, which is similar to a diver getting the bends. A gas bubble will get trapped in the gill tissue of a fish and prevent blood circulation.”

Complete article can be found on fish and wildlife web page, pick fish tab then the more tab.

I wonder why this only effected the silver carp and not the native fish species that live in the same highly saturated water? One would think that such a physical property as highly dissolved oxygen in the water would have a effect on all the fish that were swimming and breathing that highly oxygenated water.

The key to this might be the brain lesions that were discovered in the silver carps brain tissue. I think that the article said something about bleeding in the brain tissue.

Also I wonder if the outgassing of oxygen bubbles might have occurred after death? If the fish were breathing highly oxygenated water the O2 Pressure in their blood might have been higher when they were alive and after they died the floated to the surface where they were captured. I'm speculating about the floating to the surface but it's a good speculation as if they sank they would not have been collected for study. So they must have been floating on the surface in order for them to be found and collected by the biologists. That would make more sense to me. But I'm not for sure as the article didn't say that did it? Oh Well. After they died the super amount of oxygen in the blood vessels of the gills allowed the gas bubbles to come out of the gill's capillaries. Maybe that's what happened.

Why are Catfish not affected by the high oxygen content in the water below those dams. Many other fish species are caught right below the dams all the time and yet they are not dying of this high oxygen water. Maybe the new species have not adapted to this type of water where the native fish have figured out how to adapt to this type of water quality. But that's not really making sense to me.

Id like to see the results from the tissue sample studies. There are a lot of things about disease in both human's and other animals that we just don't know much about ... yet. This might be another one of those cases.

I do however wish and hope that some day someone (anyone) can figure out how to get rid of these silver carp and other grass carp species so as to preserve our native fish species. But I fear that won't happen. We might have to just get used to chasing a new fish species if we want to continue to fish at all. Hopefully that's not going to be the case. I'd hate to have to give up fishing for bass and crappie due to the fear of getting hit in the face while driving the boat at high speed by a 30 lb. flying Silver Carp. Not to mention that these silver carp take up most all the edible biomass in the waters and leave little for our young native fish to feed on. This may only get worse if these silver carp continue to expand their numbers. Which leads me to another thing that I learned in my Wildlife Biology 400 level class. Animal populations have bio feed back mechanisms that help to control their own populations. When there are too many of one species in a single area the spread disease more easily. Maybe this is what happened. Maybe one of the fish was sick and he spread it to the other's below the day as the small area below the dam was so full of other fish that fish to fish spread of the disease was made easier? That can happen with humans when they are all confined in a small area such as a school and the flu is going around. .

[restornator]

And the Mississippi catfish farmers aren't paying a dime...

[GeoFisher]

I wonder why this only effected the silver carp and not the native fish species that live in the same highly saturated water? One would think that such a physical property as highly dissolved oxygen in the water would have a effect on all the fish that were swimming and breathing that highly oxygenated water.

The key to this might be the brain lesions that were discovered in the silver carps brain tissue. I think that the article said something about bleeding in the brain tissue.

Also I wonder if the outgassing of oxygen bubbles might have occurred after death? If the fish were breathing highly oxygenated water the O2 Pressure in their blood might have been higher when they were alive and after they died the floated to the surface where they were captured. I'm speculating about the floating to the surface but it's a good speculation as if they sank they would not have been collected for study. So they must have been floating on the surface in order for them to be found and collected by the biologists. That would make more sense to me. But I'm not for sure as the article didn't say that did it? Oh Well. After they died the super amount of oxygen in the blood vessels of the gills allowed the gas bubbles to come out of the gill's capillaries. Maybe that's what happened.

Why are Catfish not affected by the high oxygen content in the water below those dams. Many other fish species are caught right below the dams all the time and yet they are not dying of this high oxygen water. Maybe the new species have not adapted to this type of water where the native fish have figured out how to adapt to this type of water quality. But that's not really making sense to me.

Id like to see the results from the tissue sample studies. There are a lot of things about disease in both human's and other animals that we just don't know much about ... yet. This might be another one of those cases.

I do however wish and hope that some day someone (anyone) can figure out how to get rid of these silver carp and other grass carp species so as to preserve our native fish species. But I fear that won't happen. We might have to just get used to chasing a new fish species if we want to continue to fish at all. Hopefully that's not going to be the case. I'd hate to have to give up fishing for bass and crappie due to the fear of getting hit in the face while driving the boat at high speed by a 30 lb. flying Silver Carp. Not to mention that these silver carp take up most all the edible biomass in the waters and leave little for our young native fish to feed on. This may only get worse if these silver carp continue to expand their numbers. Which leads me to another thing that I learned in my Wildlife Biology 400 level class. Animal populations have bio feed back mechanisms that help to control their own populations. When there are too many of one species in a single area the spread disease more easily. Maybe this is what happened. Maybe one of the fish was sick and he spread it to the other's below the day as the small area below the dam was so full of other fish that fish to fish spread of the disease was made easier? That can happen with humans when they are all confined in a small area such as a school and the flu is going around. .

these fish feed in the top 18 inches of water.......this is where the over oxygenated water is located. I think biologists are spot on.

Later,

Geo

[Moveon]

IMHO ... the state/fed govt have bigger fish to fry, than worry about the Asian carp infestation. Even if the carp problem gets cleaned up in KY, you'd have to totally eradicate every single one of them in every single waterway & pond ... or they'd be back in a matter of years. We also don't know if the deaths of those carp below the dams even WAS a "disease" ... could have just been a fluke "condition".

I doubt very seriously if the KDFWR has a greater interest in a sustainable industry with these carp. If they invade & ruin some of our best waterways, and sport fishing collapses due to their presence ... do you really think commercial fishing licenses are going to put the same amount of money in the coffers as all the in & out of state fishing licenses sold to people that fish those waters ??

We may have to be content with having their numbers "controlled" ... since there may not be a chemical or biological solution that rids us of JUST THEM. Remember, we imported them to keep aquaculture & wastewater ponds clean ... then floods put them into the main arteries of our waterways. We have to be careful with whatever methods get used to rid us of them, or even deplete their numbers to a point where they're not detrimental to the sport fish population.

... pappy

We (plural meaning all of us) didn't bring them here. Only a few people did that and they were foolish to not think that they could get into our rivers. I guess they didn't think about their ponds being flooded and releasing those carp out of their ponds into the water ways of the USA. But our US fish and wildlife agency should have thought about that and stopped it in it's tracks. But it's too late now.

But I just wanted to clarify what you were saying. We the USA didn't all bring them here to the USA. It was just a few fish farmers/researches that made the mistake. And it was a huge mistake as we know now. Hindsight is always 100%. But I wish that we have some foresight that could have prevented this from happening.

What happens if people stop going to KY lake to fish and paying for guides, fishing gear, bait, housing etc.? The KY and Barkley Lake fishing industry could be hurt if this happens.

Look on the bright side. Maybe this will cause some of the water fleas(jet ski) to stay off the lake or slow down to avoid being clobbered by a flying Asia Carp? And I'm not going to be water skiing any time soon but I wonder if every other person that's water skiing in the bays thinks about getting a carp in the face?

I'm pretty sure that If I were a fishing guide on KY Lake I would not want this to be happening and would feel pretty helpless to stop this from going on. Like Dave said he has to move to another spot if the Asian come into his spot that he's fishing. But what if they get so numerous that there is no more spots?

Why can't we use commercial nets and such and can them for Fertilizer for the farmers and not just for human consumption. There are many things that could be fertilized with these fish even if they die too soon. Grind them up and de-water them and put the dried up fish stuff in bags and sell it to Lowes for gardeners to put in their soil.

Farmers should be interested in increasing the fertility of their soils too. I'm not sure about the economics of this. To me the limited factors would be being able to net enough of these fish to make it commercially and economically viable.

I guess we just need to start thinking out side the box some more to figure out a new solution to this problem.

As to the fish kill. I've studied wildlife biology and one of the things I learned about in those classes was that wildlife population will zoom and boom. That is to say the population of an animal species will continue to increase until predation or disease cause the population to crash. This cycle is repeated over and over again throughout history and could be one of the reasons why so many of the Asian carp died at one time. They got so populated that the spread of any disease went though them faster than normal. This has been documented with other animal species. It's natures way of controlling populations. See the Lynx and Hair or the Lemmings and their predatory prey relationship. Sorry I can't remember exactly which predator that preys on the Lemmings was in that study. Maybe that's on Google some where. I had a paper back book that was required reading in one of my Wildlife Biology Classes and it had all kinds of stories about studies of predator prey relationships and such. I think I still have that book at my parents house somewhere. I enjoyed reading the stories in that book. Sometimes I wish I had majored in Wildlife Biology. They just don't earn enough money.

[rebranger]

I am working on trying to clean up Flower Lake!
I had Harold Johnson (Moon River Foods, Indianola, MS Procurement Director) come Tuesday of last week & we set 300 feet of 4” Gill net, 6 feet tall, monofilament, with weighted bottom (Net 1 on map). We made the mistake of leaving it out too long while we went to lunch. Upon returning 2 hours later, the carp had literally torn it all to pieces! We positioned this net at the entrance to a “long arm” which is about 600 yards wide & about 3 – 5 feet deep. There is so many Silver Carp in this lake that we did not catch a single other type fish. Most of the Carp averaged about 10#.
On Sat. of last week, I borrowed a “flag” type 4 “ Gill net; heavier nylon string, 5 ft tall, with no bottom weights. Having learned my lesson at Long Arm, I put out about 50 yards of this net (Net 2 on map) & waited an hour, no commotion or “driving” them. Net held up, but we caught so many we could not pull net in boat hardly. I would estimate that in 2 hours time we caught over 3000#’s of Silver Carp!! Again averaging about 10#’s and NO OTHER fish, not even a Buffalo!

When the Asian Carp processing plant gets going (estimated Nov. 25, but Harry says realistically early January, I hope to have some specialty nets just for the Silver Carp!

What are your suggestions?
Researchers in Australia have come up with what they call a "Williams Trap". It is essentially a wall type net that is staked down and has a "fence" sticking above the water line about 12 - 18 inches. The carp are driven by boats to the barrier & jump over, thus being trapped in a box type net.
My lake averages about 5 feet deep & has a flat, mud filled in bottom. This technique may work on Flower Lake.
What do you think?

[riverdog8888]

I am working on trying to clean up Flower Lake!
I had Harold Johnson (Moon River Foods, Indianola, MS Procurement Director) come Tuesday of last week & we set 300 feet of 4” Gill net, 6 feet tall, monofilament, with weighted bottom (Net 1 on map). We made the mistake of leaving it out too long while we went to lunch. Upon returning 2 hours later, the carp had literally torn it all to pieces! We positioned this net at the entrance to a “long arm” which is about 600 yards wide & about 3 – 5 feet deep. There is so many Silver Carp in this lake that we did not catch a single other type fish. Most of the Carp averaged about 10#.
On Sat. of last week, I borrowed a “flag” type 4 “ Gill net; heavier nylon string, 5 ft tall, with no bottom weights. Having learned my lesson at Long Arm, I put out about 50 yards of this net (Net 2 on map) & waited an hour, no commotion or “driving” them. Net held up, but we caught so many we could not pull net in boat hardly. I would estimate that in 2 hours time we caught over 3000#’s of Silver Carp!! Again averaging about 10#’s and NO OTHER fish, not even a Buffalo!

When the Asian Carp processing plant gets going (estimated Nov. 25, but Harry says realistically early January, I hope to have some specialty nets just for the Silver Carp!

What are your suggestions?
Researchers in Australia have come up with what they call a "Williams Trap". It is essentially a wall type net that is staked down and has a "fence" sticking above the water line about 12 - 18 inches. The carp are driven by boats to the barrier & jump over, thus being trapped in a box type net.
My lake averages about 5 feet deep & has a flat, mud filled in bottom. This technique may work on Flower Lake.
What do you think?

Do you still have a carp problem we fish for them and are looking for spots that have massive schools of silvers and big head. We average 10000 lb a night. If interested let me know thxs.

[riverdog8888]

We are looking for big schools of silver carp to catch.we fish daily for them and looking for info on big schools if we know there location today we can catch them tonight but if been few days its hard to say because they seem to move around. If only few jumping dont meen much because theres a few everywhere but if theres 100s jumping than we can do some damage to them. Thxs for any info and god bless.

[riverdog8888]

We fish for asian carp daily and looking for large schools of them on a daily basis.if were posted of them today we can catch them tonight but if been few days its hard to say because they move around. If only few jumping dont meen much because theres a few everywhere but if see 100s jumping than we can do some damage to them usually. Any info would be greatly appreciated. Thxs and god bless.