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[#0000FF]I attended a meeting with the Utah Lake Commission a couple of weeks ago. Mike Mills, of the June Sucker Recovery Program, was the featured speaker. He made a presentation regarding the carp removal aspect of the sucker program.
I liked some of the presentation slides he presented and asked if he would provide copies for me to share with the BFT Utah folks.
Here is the PDF file he sent.
Thanks Mike.
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Good to know. Thanks! So is the dent in carp population starting to show?
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That is a ton of fish flesh...
remind me what they're doing with it all?
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[#0000FF]Depends on who you talk to. The seiners claim the carp are not as abundant and their hauls are getting smaller in the same areas. Others say the carp are just spreading out over bigger areas. I personally have seen a reduction in the areas I fish most often. Of course, when they swarm the shallows to spawn you would think there are a lot more of them than there really are.
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[#0000FF]Since the PCB advisory on carp they are unable to sell it for human consumption. But they have sold it as animal feed and for processing as fish meal. The rest goes into land fill.
The state is working right now to get the okay for setting up a fish processing facility to render all of the carp into fish meal or other suitable byproducts. If they do that then they will have a central depository for anglers to dump any large numbers of carp they kill...angling or bow fishing. Somewhere down the line there may even be a bounty established.
Lots of different issues being considered...including rotenoning shallow bays full of carp during the spawn.
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Please explain:
"Mean Daily Catch"
"S.D."
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[font "Calibri"]I love me a good garden. How would one go about getting a trailer full come Octoberish to feed the maters? [/font]
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I own and live on farm on the South Shore of East Bay. I am the two story white house you can see from your boats. I have noticed a very noticeable reduction in carp numbers, even during the spawn. The lake seems more clear also.
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[quote kentofnsl]Please explain:
"Mean Daily Catch"
"S.D."[/quote]
[#0000FF]Mean Daily Catch refers to average poundage for each day of netting. Either that or the carp were especially belligerent that day.
Not sure about SD. Maybe "slow day"? But I can think of a lot of words beginning with both S and D. If it keeps you awake nights...wondering...I can contact Mike and get an answer for you.
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[cool][#0000FF]Unless the Loys (contracted seiners) have a paying customer waiting for the newly harvested carp I am sure they would be glad to "download" some poundage to you. But you would have to contact them and make that arrangement.
Otherwise, the carp in Willard are easy pickins early each morning right outside the north marina. They group up in clusters just like they do in the spring. I would be glad to sling a few arrows on your behalf.
They definitely do a lot to enhance one's garden. But the smell is hard to cover up, even with a foot or two of dirt. Make sure your garden is downwind from your home and upwind of any neighbors you ain't too fond of.
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my question for you is have they seen a reduction it the size of the fish i.e. less spawner age fish how old do carp have to be b4 they spawn and are they targeting the reporductive age class of fish in the spawning beds or just the masses of carp and callin the spawn job security
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WM,
I have a son-in-law who got a pickup load of carp fertilizer from the land fill dump that is located just north west of Goshen. The stuff was oderless -- well, at least no dead fish oder, and it was made from dead carp that had been delivered to the land fill for that purpose. He applied it to his garden this year so no current recommendatios yet. It is my understanding that they sell the stuff to anyone who wants it.
Looks like a good way to put those dead carp to good use. I think I'll go fetch a load for my garden this fall.
BLK
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[font "Calibri"]That sounds like a MUCH better option. Thanks for the heads-up!!!! That may also help the heart bleeding carp lovers out there that their beloved pets are being used in a bene fishial manner. [  ][/font]
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OK I looked at the report but I'm not seeing any increase (to speak of) over the years. Seems they are still taking what they have been for years.
So what is the difference in lake population?
I mean they need to reduce the population, but is this just another band-aid?
On my last trip the pods did seem smaller, but that has been the case before. They seem to go up and down from year to year.
personally I would hate to see them gone for good. They are just to entertaining when fishing is slow. Sometimes even when fishing is good, will take 1 carp over 10 whities anyday.
Just my 2 cents
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[#0000FF] No specific targeting by age or size. They just wrap up whatever they can in a net set. That includes a lot of "bycatch"...catfish, walleyes, largemouths, white bass, bullheads, crappies, sunfish...etc.
Carp are aquatic "rodents". They spawn in their second year and every year thereafter...laying millions of eggs instead of the few hundred eggs laid by most other competing species.
Carp live a long time and can grow to be very large. But the one thing that seems to be happening is that more of the bigger and older fish are leaving the lake because of netting. The average size of carp from Utah Lake has dropped somewhat in recent years...with very few over 10 pounds showing up. Not too many years ago there were plenty of 10-15 pound fish and I personally shot one with a bow that weighed 30 pounds.
The  thing is that even a 5# female...about 3 years old...will have over a pound of tiny eggs in her tummy before spawning. Millions. If every egg hatched and survived...from each spawning female...there would be no room for water in Utah Lake. Thankfully, the predators do take a big toll on the young carplets each year...for the two or three months that they are small enough to eat. But by fall they are spiny 6 inchers that are immune to white bass and the smaller cats and walleyes.
[inline "CARP EGGS 2.jpg"]
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"Seems they are still taking what they have been for years.
So what is the difference in lake population?
I mean they need to reduce the population, but is this just another band-aid?"
[#0000FF]Aha! That is a question to which I have not been able to get an answer either. Nobody is providing numbers of the before and after.
I have watched the Loy commercial seining operations since the 1960s...back when they were trucking huge quantities to the mink farms in Cache County and shipping carloads (refrigerated) to the ethnic markets in Chicago and Los Angeles. I saw lots of big scaly buglemouths leaving the lake in those days and marveled that there were so many left.
Supposedly the numbers ordered removed...and the financing by the feds...are designed to remove enough carp to ultimately reach the "tipping point", where the carp population will be low enough to remain fairly constant...held in check by predators and natural attrition. But I have never been able to get an equation of how they arrived at those numbers...or how many more it would be than have been removed over the previous years for commercial purposes.
You are not alone in wanting to always have some carp available in the lake. They can and do fulfill a niche in the overall ecology. When overabundant they do more damage than good. But when held in check they provide forage for other species. And they are definitely fun to pull on with a fishin' pole.
Willard Bay, Deer Creek and Starvation are three lakes I fish that have carp...and they remain in some kind of balance with the other species. If Utah Lake and Yuba could both be "altered" to bring the carp into some semblance of control they would both be better places.
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FYI for those that are wondering --- S D probably is standard deviation. A statistical number.....don't worry about it.
I am curious if there has been enough removal yet to see an increase in weed beds? I think the reestablishment of weed zones will be key to a significant change in the lake.
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[#0000FF]The types of delicate green weed beds found in pristine lakes have been absent from Utah Lake for well over a hundred years. There are isolated pockets that grow in protected areas...until the carp barge their way in and decimate them.
There are no new weeds noticeable anywhere around the lake...yet. But there are some areas that grow large clumps of an aquatic weed that is like underwater barbed wire. (see attached pic) It is a heavy dark brownish green stuff that grows clear to the top of the water in as much as 6 feet of depth. The carp love it and can often be seen gathering over and around the clumps...rolling and thrashing as if they were trying to eliminate it. It's ugly but it's tough. Nasty to try to fish around it. Any fish that finds its way into that stuff is gonna get loose.
There are still way too many carp in the lake to hope for clean clear water with healthy weed beds. But you are right. Once the weeds can make it they will help filter the sediments and oxygenate the water to make the lake a better place for the other species.
The other growth you can see in the attached pic are the native reeds. They are visible in many early pics of Utah Lake and are still common along some shorelines. However, they have been crowded out in a few places by invasive species like the phragmites. Thankfully, there is also a shoreline restoration project around the lake to eradicate the phrags and the Russian olives. (See attached PDF)
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I still say the only good carp is a dead carp. Their purpose is fertilizer, nothing more.
I just really doubt enough mass bugle mouths will ever be removed to make THAT much of a difference. Those carp spawn like crazy and like mentioned, lay many MANY eggs all over UL.
Me thinks that carp removal operation has plenty of job security.
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[#0000FF]I concur on all points.
Spoken like a true HGS.
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