Just as a little background.... I've got a 20 acre lake with major clarity issues and an invasion of common carp (CGC). At this time it also has a decent population of Channel Cats, and a remnant population of crappie. This fall I plan to stock 200 6-10" Blue Cats (thanks TJ!!) with the goal of taking the CGC and turning the problem they present into an asset. That is, making them food for the BC. From what I understand (or hope), once I get the BC to 10-15 lbs they will prey on the CGC. But I'd also like to help them out along the way, and reduce CGC numbers in the meantime by harvesting them via gill or trammel net. Once I harvest them I'd like to dice them up and feed them to my BC and CC. Presently I have a feeder going off 6 times a day and have the CC trained to eat hot dog slices and AM Largemouth in addition to the feed. So, back to gill netting carp.......

1) Are common carp readily netted via gill net?

2) Does anyone have any tips on what type of gill net I should purchase? flag gill net, trammel net, tie down net, lead line gill net?

3) Is there a way to make gill netting a one man job? I've tried seining and captured hundreds of pounds of CGC, but it takes 6 guys. And that's not feasible for me to do with any regularity.

4) What size of openings work best for 1-3 lb carp? Should I get nets of multiple size openings?

5) Multifilament or monofilament netting work best in my situation?

6) Any words of advice on how to operate a gill net?

And last but not least, would growing out HBG in a grow out pond and releasing them into this pond help me out by having them eat small CGC, or would they most likely become BC food? Any other thoughts or ideas are welcomed. Rotenone is out of the equation for at least the next 10 years. I'm sure I'll come up with more questions as I research this, but wanted to get this out there and hear some thoughts.

And just for reference purposes, in case anyone else stumbles across this thread in the future, here is some good reading on carp control methods.......

http://conservancy.umn.edu/bitstream/handle/11299/60111/6.6.Baldry.pdf?sequence=1

One summer as a biologist aid we gill netted a lot of common carp. Yeah they seemed very susceptible to gill nets!

That's encouraging Cecil. Now I just need to learn how to do it and what size and kind of net to get!

The only problem I see is that gill nets are non selective.

Thanks for the response Dave. I was under the impression that as long as you check your net every 4-8 hrs after setting it there wouldn't be very many mortalities. Is that not correct? I certainly wouldn't want to kill many BC or crappie.

That's true Dave but we rarely caught largemouth bass in them. The biologist told us they seem to be able to see them and avoid them.

Our nets were also set for suspended fish like crappie, bluegill, and channel catfish, and most of the bass we sampled were in the litoral zone close to shore electroshocking at night.

So maybe part of it was due to different habitat?

Cecil, do you recall the mortality rate on netted fish? Particularly catfish.

I've watched videos of gill netting Asian carp on Lake Kentucky and they seemed to indicate that they could be selective and that game fish mortalities weren't a big concern.

Great video if people have time to watch... https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CQYJd-7iQb8

Wow that's been a long time ago! Summer of 1976 or 77'.

I honestly don't recall. I do know they got their pec fins caught in the nets and made some nasty tangles. And they really cut up our hands removing them from the net.

The worst fish were large gizzard shad. In the warm water they got putrid in a hurry!

We also let the nets set overnight.

I have never even seen a gill net. My comment comes from an article I saw quite a few years ago regarding a large Mexican lake that had huge bass. Several guiding businesses started to draw American fisherman. However, the locals, always hungry, started gill netting and over the years just about wiped out the big bass population. I recall seeing some pictures that were posted in the article.

Dave,

I heard that too about some of those Mexican reservoirs.

Just know we rarely got a lmb in a gill net when doing the reservoir surveys in central Indiana.