The White Amur is also known as the grass carp and is commonly stocked into ponds to control vegitation. Most of the Amur that are stocked are sterile and do not reproduce. These are not the bighead and silver carp that are causing the problem. I hope you are passing on the gift that was given you, my dad was not a fisherman and I had to learn on my own. Tom

Tom,
Thanks for the info about the white amur.  Dad has been using them for a number of years for vegetation control.

Sorry, you did not have the opportunity to fish with your Dad.  I am disabled and retired but I still find the time to take kids fishing.  I enjoy it a lot.  When bass fishing was really becoming popular I began trying to find some local kids and teach them how to make lures out of the things laying around.  I think I enjoy that almost as much as fishing.  God has truly blessed us as a nation--only wish more of us could realize it.

I look forward to meeting other club members.

Tom

As promised, here is an asian carp update. These fish have been in some of the Chicago Park District lagoons since the early 90s. As these waters are not connected to the Illinois river, the best guess is they were introduced with catfish stockings. One of the lagoons recently had a fish kill and fishermen have been snagging the remaining live fish that are all concentrated at the inlet. At least two of these fish have weighed in over 65# I will try to post a picture. More as info is available. Tom    http://i698.photobucket.comhttp://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv342/pegsguy/ChicagoBigheadCarp.jpg?t=1278790159" GALLERYIMG="no">/albums/vv342/pegsguy/ChicagoBigheadCarp.jpghttp://i698.photobucket.com/albums/vv342/pegsguy/ChicagoBigheadCarp.jpg">

A bit more news, this from Dale Bowman of the Chicago Sun Times: As of yet there are no reports of small asians. This is in a way good news, indicating there is not any significant reproduction in these lagoons. As I have reported before, some experts believe the asians will be unable to spawn in the lakes. Any evidence of spawning in these lagoons would refute that. I hope everyone is OK with my choice of putting this here, it just didn't seem right to put it in Carp (that should be for carp fishing discussions) and Exotics seemed too far down the page. Tom

A bounty system would work and does. We here in Washington State we have a bounty system in place on the Columbia River on Pike Minnows ( Squaw Fish). It starts out at like 50 cents a fish then it goes up after you catch so many to like 75 cents and so on. There are some guys that do it full time and make good money at it. But I agree this Asian Carp thing is getting out of hand just like the Snake Head just because some asian wants to have fish form thier country. So they import live fish and sometimes turn them loose in local waters and therein lies the problem. I realize that coustoms is trying to stop this from happening but some slip thru the cracks. Just my 2 cents.

A couple of points: 1: People of asian ancestry had nothing to do with the introduction of these fish, and the tale that some asian cultures have an "eat a fish, release a fish" ethic is completely unsubstantiated. 2: These fish are so prolific that no amount of fishing is going to dent the population and with budget constraints, not even the feds could afford a meaningful bounty program. I am afraid the battle in the Mississippi basin is lost and the best hope is that as I reported earlier, the carp will not be able to spawn in the Great Lakes (David J Jude PhD, University of Michigan) Tom

White Amur are also commonly called "Grass Carp" and are often stocked weed control. Nowdays it is common to stock triploid fish to prevent reproduction. I have read they can reproduce enough to pretty much strip a lake of vegetaton. I am not sure which species the "jumping carp" are and to just call them "Asian" carp does not really ID them properly.

Thanks ERABBIT, for providing the proper information:

1974 - "Arkansas Game and Fish Commission stocks 380,000 grass Asian carp in state waters, and eventually opens the breeding program to bighead, black, silver carp."

The Asian people had nothing to do with it.  It's easy to blame them based on the origin of the fish.  Let's not spread unfounded rumors, thanks.

The carp species that are of concern are the Bighead and the Silver. The Silvers are the jumpers and the bighead can reach 100#. Odly enough, it is legal for a grocery store in Illinois to have these fish as live fish, but are supposed to be killed before leaving the store. An interview with a specialty grocer in Chicago revealed that most of the carp sold left the store as heads only, leaving the store to dispose of the carcass!
For those of you that are interested, National Geographic Channel will air a special on this on Sun, 7/18. I heard 9pm edt, but that may vary with location. Tom

Something new seems to pop up every day on this subject. It was announced yesterday that the State of Il. will provide $2 million in aid to Big River Fish in Pearl, Il to expand their opperations. Big River is a commercial proccessor that hopes to ship 30 million pounds of invasive carp to China over the next few years. Tom

It's short notice, but tonight (Sunday 07/18) at 10PM EDT if you have National Geographic Channel on cable, their is a show called "Monster Fish:Flying Carp" and it's about the infestation of Asian Carp in the Illinois River. I believe I saw that it will replay again next weekend on Saturday at the same time.

I watched the Nat Geo special, good solid information but nothing really new. Also not a word about the proccessing operation here in Il or any mention of the recent (and not so recent) studies that seem to show that even if thes critters make it to the Great Lakes it seems unlikely that they  will be able to reproduce. Bighead have been in some of the Chicago Park District lagoons for years. One of these laggons recently had a massive fish kill and no juveniles were found. Tom

I too watched the Nat Go special and was horrified at what i was being told these carp can mass produce like guppies if the conditions are right they can possibly spawn twice a year.that my freinds is scary,the only predator that these fish have is humans in the united states.i live here on the east coast and there is a company that catches millions of menhayden a year for vitamins and fertilizer and it has now put a strain on the striper population,i would like to know if there has been any kind of study to find more uses like i mentioned eaarlier.Or possibly hold derbys to catch these fish and do some good like feed the homeless or less fortunate.



Give your fellow man a hand up not a hand out.

Did you miss the part of that special that covered the 'Redneck Fishing Derby'? Unfortunately a derby like that could be held every day and it still wouldn't solve the problem but might lessen it a bit. Populations are in the vicinity of 10,000 fish per river mile and under ideal condithions these things can spawn 4 times a year! There is a commercial proccessor operating in Pearl, Il that ships proccessed fish to China for human consumption. Tom

no i saw that what a cool way to fish,i found how these carp are eating themselves to death interesting,also how they seemed to be genetically altered to fly out of the water,what purpose does that serve

I don't believe it was human manipulation that caused the mutation, just an unfortunate thing that the trait developed in the carp in this country. Tom

I am sure you all have heard about the record blue catfish that was caught recently. Did anyone pick up on the fact that it was caught using an asian carp fillet for bait? Any use that is terminal for the asians is a good thing. Tom

here here

I have a great idea!!! To crop down the population people could snag the fish or bowfish for the and give them to Purina for 25 cents per carp. There's alot of people who could use the extra dough!
TIGHT LINES!