I caught this guy yesterday out of my pond and I'm not very happy about it! I think it's a grass carp and I don't know how it got in there or if there are any more. I assume it hitchhiked in with the FHM's two years ago or maybe last years stocking of the game fish. I spent alot of time looking through the stocked fish to try and avoid this, but CARP happens, I guess.

The pond has been rather muddy this last winter, maybe there are more in there. I will be using my newly made clover leaf to assess the HBG recruitment. This will be handy to see if any young carp show up...does this kind of carp reproduce? Is it actually a grass carp?

Any suggestions on determining the predicament I'm in or management thereafter?

Definitely a grass carp. Probably came in from a contaminated fish stocking unless it was already in the pond (they can live a VERY long time) although that one isn't very big, looks to be around 2-3 years old. Most likely a triploid, but no guarantee on that.

They look nearly Identical to GSH when small, even somewhat like a FHM. Most Triploids are quarantined in grow outs, Diploids were more likely to show up in nowhereville. Amurs will stir the heck out of the bottom if they run out of proper vegetation types.

Yikes, avoid that hatchery in the future!

It's highly unlikely that it came up from the creek and the pond was drained from May until October when it was dugout and totally dried. Coming from the minnow hatchery makes the most sense as it would have given it two years to grow to the 16" mark (unless they can grow that much in a year). I would say it would be easier to overlook a carp baby in with the FHM's compared to the HBG, RES, and HSB.

At any rate, I plan to fish a bit more than I normally would to see if there are any more takers, maybe do some throw netting during feeding time, and keep an eye for YOY carp in the bait trap. Surely I didn't overlook very many of them. My biggest concern was them reproducing and apparently grass carp of the diploid variety can reproduce, but only in rivers.

Maybe, all is not lost! There for a minute I was pretty flipped out.

I suspect you've only got one or a few GC due to stocking contamination. Your guess on the growth rate seems correct to me also - let's hope that's the only one. I don't think you'll see any carp reproduction but you can keep trying to catch them and remove.

No joke there. My parents have a pond with some left that were stocked somewhere between 1988 and 1994 (stocked by the original owner, unknown exactly when).