hammercarp

Lungelarry Both. Get used to it. cwpowell You're right. Good idea.

I keep reading that cormorants have always been in the great lakes. This is not true. They arrived here in the last century. This persistent myth speaks volumes to me about the nonsense that has been put into peoples heads about the natural world/environment. The cormorants arrival here in the last century and their great success at exploiting the great lakes ecosystem is a perfect example that we (people) are not the only creatures to upset the balance of nature ( I believe that this whole idea of the balance of nature is simplistic hogwash ) . It was perfectly natural for the cormorants to migrate here and for them to exploit and effect the great lakes environment. It is also perfectly natural that we are concerned about this and take measures to control their population. An egg oiling campaign every spring would do this and provide work for people. I think cormorants have been studied enough. By the way. Every spring one of the spots I fish for carp is about 50 m. from a cormorant nesting site. It stinks, but I get a kick out of watching them. They are here to stay.

My thoughts are with you Mike and I hope for a speedy recovery.

My thoughts are with you and I hope for your daughters recovery.

Mike My thoughts are with you and I hope for a good outcome. It must be a very uncertain time for you. Stay positive.

Here is some stuff from the front lines so to speak. This is an ongoing topic on the carp forum that I am a member of. 1st We wish to hell that they would have labelled these things something other that carp. " I can certainly help with some reputable sources, and can correct some misinformation. First, there is no record of either bighead or silver carp being caught in Lake Michigan. While it is possible that a handful of carp have made it into the lake it is not likely. Earlier this month, eDNA testing begain in Michigan waters of Lake Michigan and high-priority tributaries like the St. Joe. To my knowledge (and I spoke with MDNRE chief of fisheries Kelley Smith yesterday) there have been no positive results. In Lake Erie, the situation is somewhat different. A handful of bighead carp were caught there from 1995 through the early 2000s. These fish were in good health and obviously found enough to eat. There is no evidence that they reproduced, though. See photos online and Fisheries journal reference: http://nas.er.usgs.gov/queries/factsheet.aspx?SpeciesID=551 The fact that a handful of fish that were released into Lake Erie did not (apparently) spawn successfully is NOT evidence that they cannot spawn in the Great Lakes basin. Rivers that could serve as spawning streams on the basis of their undammed length were published in Kolar et al. 2007 (American Fisheries Society special publication 33). Further study on spawning habitat suitability in these rivers is ongoing, and will be used to prioritize monitoring efforts. Both silver and bighead carp are considered to require 1) at least 60 miles of free flowing river for development of neutrally buoyant eggs that drift until they hatch, 2) water temperature above 64 degrees F, 3) an increase in either river discharge or turbidity associated with a major rain event. These are not set in stone, and eggs have hatched in a petri dish on a desk, so mechanisms leading to the observed pattern of successful reproduction in the wild only under these conditions are unknown. Also, there are (rare) instances where reproduction has been successful even without access to a free-flowing river environment. A key for the Great Lakes is that more carp equals a greater risk that they will find a receptive mate in the (relatively rare but not non-existant) patches of ideal habitat. Think of salmon. We stocked millions each year under the assumption that they would never reproduce in Great Lakes rivers. Now half of the Chinooks in Lake Michgian are products of natural spawning. Had only a handful of salmon been introduced, it is doubtful they would have established successfully. Obviously there are big differences between carp and salmon, but the point is that having a handful of fish in the system presents less risk (in the case of the carp) than a large number of carp. Prevention is therefore an important element of preventing establishment of spawning populations. The term "Establishment" is not equivalent to "Introduction". Yes, bigheads were introduced to Lake Erie. No, they did not become established. This is a common scenario in invasion biology. Often, a given species is introduced many times before it finally becomes established. Once it is established, eradication is almost always impossible (witness the battle with sea lamprey). As for impacts of establishment, the NAS link above gives some good published sources. Demonstrating a causal link between a new invasive species and native fish is difficult and often takes many years of monitoring because we don't have the benefit of a good controlled experiment - it would be very irresponsible for scientists to randomly choose a set of rivers to introduce carp while leaving others as controls, for example. The natural variability of river systems makes it especially hard in rivers. Lucky for us, the Illinois Natural History Survey has a long-term data set that includes pre-carp data. The presentation below outlines some significant findings of this ongoing effort, including declines in two native planktivores - bigmouth buffalo and gizzard shad. These fish are more similar in niche to bighead and silver carps than other native species, but other native species (bass, bluegill, crappie) do depend on plankton early in life. One might expect it to take several years to see a decline in those species as a result. I have been out on the Illinois River with INHS and talked at length about other impacts. They have seen a very dramatic change in the plankton of the river since bighead and silver carp populations exploded, but I don't believe that work has been published yet. One slide shows that gamefish have declined, but note that this can't be solely attributed to carp. Again, it often takes many years of monitoring to detect trends because so many other factors (river level, temperature, etc.) come into play. http://www.ilma-lakes.org/PDF/Sass.pdf Please note. This is the Grand river in Michigan not Ontario. As for the Grand River, I believe it is one of the most vulnerable rivers in the Great Lakes basin. It appears to have everything carp need for spawning, nursery, and adult habitats. Gizzard shad (which are not native to Lake Michigan, but entered through the Chicago canals in the 1950s) do very well in the lower Grand, and are similar to bighead carp and silver carp in terms of their optimum adult feeding temperature. There is potential for competition between carps and native fish, and potential that carp will affect forage species to the detriment of native predators. No one can say for sure what the extent of effects will be or how long it will take to observe them. Sea lamprey first entered Lake Michigan in 1936 and it wasn't until the late 1940s that lake trout populations crashed as a result. From the slides at the link above, you can see that bigheads came into the Illinois River (LaGrange Reach) in 1995 and silvers in 1998. Slide 7 shows that it took about 10 years (even with the very favorable environment of the Illinois River) for silver carp populations to explode. Therefore, we are only starting to see the impacts of this tremendous increase on native species. Furthermore, the impacts and timeline could be very different in the Great Lakes. If we were to wait until we were certain to work toward prevention we would find ourselves in the same situation as with round goby, quagga mussles, spiny water flea, and a host of others. The work being done now on prevention is work toward closing pathways of invasion - not just for carps but for many other species down the road (the electric barriers, for example, were originally intended to keep round goby from moving OUT of Lake Michigan into the Mississippi River drainage). Chicago canals are now home to at least two exotic invertebrates that are not yet established in Lake Michigan, while Lake Michigan is home to threats like the New Zealand mudsnail and VHS that could move into the Mississippi Basin." Dan Dan O'Keefe, Ph.D. Southwest District Extension Educator Michigan Sea Grant Michigan State University Extension I hope this helps in understanding what is going on.

How many will be watching this one? Inside Job Trailers

Deer will eat pumpkin. I read a couple of years ago about a farmer losing most of his pumpkin crop once the deer were on to them.

Pumpkin pie filling!

You have my sympathy.

I think you have to look at it this way. Yes that fish may die. But by throwing that individual fish back you are in fact protecting the resource from being pillaged by the unscrupulous who would use the excuse that it was going "die anyway" to keep OOS catches and fish protected by slot size restrictions. It would be just too easy to get away with or even fake it.

Either that or they end up being a big mouth right wing radio talk show host.

If you would have placed a piece of wood or plastic against the spot where the hook was to poke through it will penetrate the skin a lot lot easier.

Ha! another bread box beagle. That's very good of you to take her in. Watch out they are escape artists. There's lots of cottontail and snowshoe up your way. Just let her run while your waiting on a carp. She'll be in shape in no time.

I think I can make it.

That's a nice healthy looking channel cat.

The best moment of the day came from a grandfather and his 3-4 year old boy. They headed out to the end of the marina outfitted with what looked to be a snoopy pole and tackle box. After fishing for a half hour or so they came walking back to my location. The boy was so happy because he had caught the first fish of his life. The grandfather said "It was this big," holding his arms stretched out wide. The little boy replied "no." The grandfather then said "He still has some things to learn."

Imagine climbing into your tree stand in the dark and bumping into this guy.

Cause their too big and old to eat that's why. Just keep the 1&1/2 to 3 lb'rs.

It snowed in Utah yesterday.

I would like to apologize to any US citizens that I offended in the post about the kid falling out of the tree.It was just plain wrong to connect you with the actions of a callous jerk.

Well.......How did you do?

UF Dan is right about the hair rig. I will greatly increase the number of hook ups. Your method is a good one and the carp picture shows that. But I can guarentee you that the carp has to pick up and spit out your hook repeatedly until the corn covering the hook point is knocked off. This is the only way you're going to get the hook stuck into them to start with. So covering the hook point to start with is counter productive. I don't use the hair rig myself because I believe I have learned from some very experienced carp anglers another method that is simpler. I will post on this technique later on. It is similar to what you are doing but has been refined to be much more effective.

You are out of luck if you want to fish the lakeside for the next month or so. They are repairing the pier.