Pond Boss Forums AQUATIC VEGETATION Controlling unwanted plants I have a question about grass carp.

Ok, I have an 8 arce pond with grass carp in it. They were stocked 20 years ago. A few years after the grass carp were stocked we stoped catching catfish. This spring I just caught a baby grass carp on a lurer. I thought they were not suposed to reproduce in ponds? Today I caught a 30+ pound grass carp on a trot line, using a little bluegill. Before the grass carp were stocked we were catching 20+ pound channel cat. Now we dont catch any channel cats. So now I know that grass carp reproduce in my pond, eat little bluegill, live for more than 20 years, and have a negitive effect on my catfish. Has anyone else had this problem?

How long was the baby grass carp and do you have a picture? I asssume that you originally stocked diploid grass carp.

It was 7 inches, I dont have a picture. I'm not sure what kind of grass carp I put in. The fish farm said that they will not reproduce in ponds because the eggs will drown. Do triploid grass carp look the same as diploid grass carp?

Diploid and triploid grass carp externally look the same - identical. Some states allow only sale of infertile or sterile grass carp (triploids). The fish farm probably did not really mean the eggs will drown. Typically grass carp eggs require a fairly high current or strong enough current to keep the eggs suspended and moving in the water column (river) until they hatch. Under ideal conditions, I suppose fertile (diploid) grass eggs could hatch in a pond or lake's calm water setting, but this would be a very rare and an unusual situation.

Do you ocassionally see your oldest largest grass carp sunning, idly near the surface on warm sunny days?. Grass carp often "hang" in lose groups. If you occassionaly see them near the surface do you see smaller or intermediate individuals in the school of largest fish?

what state are you in? This would be extremely rare for them to reproduce in a lake. Sure you do not have common carp

Jake,

In addition to Bill's comments on Identification, I'd like to add that grass carp never hit lures, in my experience (although there is always a first time), and to my knowledge eat only vegetable matter, not BG. Even common carp do not normally eat BG nor hit lures although occcasionally that does happen. I'm wondering if someone slipped a buffalo (rough fish) in with your grass carp. What you describe is most unusual behavior for the grass carp we see in Texas.

Caught a 6 lb grass carp on a Joe's Hopper(dry fly that looks like a grasshopper)3 years ago. Was a difficult fight as you might imagine. Not sure if it might have looked like a willow catkin to the fish (they take these on the surface some in my pond) or if gc eat insects now and then.

I think you may be right about it being a common carp, because the one I caught had wiskers, and the pictures I have seen of grass carp dont. Do grass carp have wiskers? If it is a common carp, what can I do about it, and how in the world did it get there?

Okay. Now we are solving this puzzle. I didn't want to be the bad cop and bring up all the "holes" in his statement. The fish with whiskers was either a member of the catfish family or a common carp. Absolutely NO whiskers on a grass carp!. If the fish had scales it was most likely a common carp; aka bugle mouth, or sewer bass. You will get many, many opinions here how it got in there. Anyway, it is there, and it probablay has brothers and sisters with it. As the population increases in numbers your pond will become more and more muddy looking.

LM bass and larger channel cats will feed on the young carp. Keep your numbers up for the bass and catfish. You might want to have some carp fishing derbies for your fishing friends. A prize for largest and most carp caught. You may have to annually restock 10"-12" catfish until larger cats start showing up in the angler's catch. Restocking catfish 8" or smaller will mostly be expensive bass food. It would be cheaper to feed your bass beef or pork steak or ham than 4"-8" catfish!

I'm thinking about just restarting the pond, because there is so many fish in there that I dont want like green sunfish, crappie, bullhead and carp. I just want bass, bluegill, channel cat. How would I go about restarting it?

Jake,

The options for restarting are fairly drastic.

One is to drain the pond which can be accomplished by pumps, siphon systems, or digging a trench to allow all the water to drain. In this approach, all the water, not just most of it, will have to be removed. I have drained two ponds by the trenching method, one with a trench through the spillway and the other through the dam itself. Both are quick, effective, and won't bankrupt you.

Another option is chemical, with rotenone (sp?) generally the chemical of choice. I've never used it, so will defer to others on its use.

Restarting is a last resort. Be sure of your objectives for your pond before taking that step, i.e. what exactly do you want from your pond? There are many ways to minimize the effects of "undesirable" fish, short of restarting completely. There are several folks on this Forum who can suggest those ways, folks who have had the same fish and same concerns.

My advice:

1)thoroughly consider your objectives
2)review all possible options to achieve them short of restarting and
3) if you are still convinced that restarting is the only way to achieve your objectives, then you've done all you can do to insure the best decision and can comfortably proceed.

Jake,
Restarting your pond is a very drastic step to take. If you go a little bass heavy with your pond and keep it that way over time you will notice the number of your undesirable fish go down. Some may even be non-existant.

This kansas farm pond is 43 years old. It used to be 25 feet deep. When the original owner stocked it, he put in bluegill, channel catfish, and largemouth bass. The channel cat used to get to 25 pounds. It is fed by a natural spring. Over the years the pond has silted in and is now only 10 feet maximum. We dont catch channel catfish. The bass are under a pound. There are two many unwanted fish. My goal is to restore big channel catfish, big large mouth bass, and get rid of the unwanted fish. I also want the channel cat to reproduce in the pond. So, It would be very nice if someone could tell me what I need to do. Money is no object.

Jake,

Opinions are all we can offer...ultimately you must choose the course of action best for you.

Please don't take the following as a negative, it is certainly not meant that way...but if you do not know how to recognize a grass carp, then, before taking on the task of restarting an 8 acre pond, you may want to enlist the assistance of a professional pond manager (not someone who is selling fish) to evaluate your specific situation and make some recommendations or present you with options. We can all guess at possible approaches from a distance, but a good on-site knowledgable expert would be very helpful to you.

The very best that I know of is the one who is the "Pond Boss". Contact Bob Lusk and try to get him to do an evaluation for you. He is a very busy man, but good people always are.

Somewhere on this website Bill Cody wrote about the life cycle of a pond. I can't find it and wish he would do it again. It sounds like yours is past old age and needs a new start. I expect the big cats died of old age. I expect that the bass were not properly harvested and now you are bass heavy. Other fish, crappie, etc., have been arbitrarily added. I see no quick fixes to your situation.

You can possibly harvest your way out of your present situation. Keep every bass under 14 inches, keep all of the crappie, and keep trotlining carp. The remaining bass will grow when competition decreases. However, with bass present, I think you are mostly out of luck on spawning of catfish. To deepen the water, it makes more $ sense to raise the dam.

All that said, I would probably suck it dry, clean it out and start over. Fifteen+ ft. is a lot of muck. I believe you will be a lot happier 3 to 5 years down the road with a fresh start. You could place structure where you want it, build ridges and start with known species. You might consider a separate forage pond for raising of catfish to be added as they grew. BTW, if you do suck it dry, you might be surprised at the size of the bass and catfish that are remaining. However, if they won't bite, I consider them useless.

Here is a picture of the pond. It is looking at the dam. There is alot of it you cant see. Just thought I would post a picture for the heck of it.

I also live in Kansas. You might check with the Kansas Fish & Game people. I have a big lake about 22 miles from where I live, so they aren't too far away. They have put their "shock" boat in my pond. It generates an electrical charge which causes the fish to come to the surface so they can be netted. We checked the fish population (both species and numbers of each species) and physical condition. It didn't cost anything. If fact I had a small overpopulation of 7'-9" bass and they moved a couple dozen of them to a nearby state lake. My pond is about 2 to 21/2 surface acres. We brought one of my old grass carp up - weighed 32#.