fishfry

We were on the Trent river very recently, lots and lots of dead carp. every morning they blew up on the shore in front of our cabin. Sometimes 10 to 12 overnight and about half that in the day. That shoreline takes up about 50 meters. We fished the pads and grass, many more carp and cats littered the bottom there, in areas they were covering it. When i saw live ones with two or three white scales in a row vertically or horizontally , the fish was always acting kinda funny. Lethargic and disoriented, I could pass right over them and they would swim in little lazy circles as if i wasn't there at all. I even bumped a couple with the trolling motor prop and the just kept swimming. If you get back into the bays you too will see there rotting corpses, they stink. In some areas my eyes would burn and i developed a funny rash on my hands after i dipped them into the water, still have it but it is slowly disappearing. I am concerned about putting my boat in the water elsewhere, i wiped and deweeded it, drained the tanks, as the new radio commercial suggested, but i still wonder. Down towards Campbellford, there is is a little pond on the right where the carp are all dead and floating. It's kinda hard to miss, follow your nose. It is totally separated from the Trent system except by proximity. How did they die? Could have been a frog from the Trent hopping in a spreading it, could have been somebody tossed a dead rotting corpse in, or it could be somebody sprayed or introduced some toxin in. "Nobody" is saying anything and it seems that "nobody" cares what else it is effecting. Not even the Ministry is saying anything, except maybe with the radio spots? Interesting. As far as what caused it, I heard two stories. The first was a disease such as herpes and a bacteria, many of you have already discussed this. That is the story a pretty young lady first heard when she asked a person of authority. Then this person offered a second off the record solution, still vague, but possibly much more believable. She was told that the ministry was intentionally killing carp, catdogs and (Gobys???) because they eat many game fish eggs. Separately that very same day a person from our group overheard a conversation between two older men about the subject. 'Last year my neighbor saw them spraying the back bays a couple locks up, couda been for squitos, but soon after lots of carp ended up floatin. This spring the carp spawn was almost not there.' I am only reporting what we saw and heard, and what happened to my hands. I certainly am not making any accusations, that would be truly inappropriate. I do know this, the fishing was slower then it had been in the past few years, the boys that bottom fish caught way less Gobys that years previous, dead carp and cats where everywhere. Something is up in that system, i truly pray that is not somebody spraying, adding chemicals too or screwing with that ecosystem under the cuff. My kids swim in that water, we eat fish from it and if there are that many dead fish floating the bacteria count must be way through the roof. The fact that the Ministry doesn't seem to be that concerned is VERY interesting, Don't you think? You'd think we'd learn from what the states did in the mid-century with DDT. But don't worry, it only almost put their national bird into extinction. Certainly that couldn't happen to the the beautiful sound of the Loon, could it? I did notice fewer of those as well. Good Luck to us all.