Flesh quality decline in bighead and silver carp

[carptracker]

Condition factor, and along with that the quality of the flesh for eating, has been declining on bighead and silver carp, and it is worst by far here in the Missouri River. Essentially they are starving, and starving fish don't taste very good. Bigheads have been questionable for the last couple years here in Missouri, and for the first time this year I have captured extremely low condition factor silver carp. When I cut them open they had that clearish, gelatinous flesh that comes with fish that have been losing way too much weight. Also, in the last year, more bighead carp outside the Missouri, at least in the Mississippi River, have been really skinny.

This is not good news because 1) I've been telling everyone how good these fish are to eat, and the skinny are not. I don't want to look like a liar - if you shoot those skinny fish, might as well leave them in the bucket 2) Assuming that anorexia/bulemia is not the current rageamong carps, it means that there is not enough food out there to feed them any more. I think this is because there are too many fish, especially too many silver carp. If the carp are hurting, plankton feeders have got to be hurting too....

[scribe917k]

I noticed when we were shooting the river and shot about 50 bigheads in a day there were a few that were real skinny. Most of them were not though. Thats on the illinois river around grafton. The majority of them were healthy looking but a few were skinny. I have not seen a skinny silver this year but still lots of time.

[carptracker]

Yeah, I mentioned to Christine earlier that I don't really understand the variation in condition factor. It seems larger than it should be. But in the Missouri River, nearly all the bigheads are skinny, and now some of the silvers, too. Maybe some of those Grafton fish are escapees from the Missouri River.

[HNI_Christine]

Duane, is there any commercial fishing for the bigheads and silver in MO?

[Vlad the Impailer]

How many kinds of plankton eating fish are there? We had trouble catching the tubby spoonbill this year. quite a few of the fish looked "skinny". me and my friend kept talking about that through the whole season. out of 30 something fish only one was over 40 pounds and maybe only three of them over 30 pounds. some of the fish would still be between 46 and 50 inches long but just not have the weight to them. I did not pay that much attention to the few hundred big heads and silvers we caught... I was too busy using them for batting practice.

[carptracker]

ORIGINAL: HNI_Christine

Duane, is there any commercial fishing for the bigheads and silver in MO?

Not enough to be worth mentioning. No place nearby to sell them, is the biggest problem.

[ETA] - not to mention the fact thatno onewould buy bighead carp that are all bones.

[carptracker]

ORIGINAL: Vlad the Impailer

How many kinds of plankton eating fish are there?

Lots of kinds, but the larger from the midwest ones that are primarily plankton feeding as adults are bigmouth buffalo, gizzard shad, and paddlefish. Data shows that bm buffalo and g shad on the Illinois River are declining in condition. There are not enough paddlefish there to show any kind of trend. I have not seen data on paddlefish that indicates a decline in condition factor, and the FWS has looked at that in Missouri. One thing that may make the data too noisy to show a trend is that many paddlefish escape reservoirsthrough dams, and those are nice and plump.

Aside from those fish, nearly every fish in the river eats plankton when they are very small. Plus lots of fish that don't get big eat zooplankton, like emerald shiners, and other other important baitfish.

We had trouble catching the tubby spoonbill this year. quite a few of the fish looked "skinny". me and my friend kept talking about that through the whole season. out of 30 something fish only one was over 40 pounds and maybe only three of them over 30 pounds. some of the fish would still be between 46 and 50 inches long but just not have the weight to them. I did not pay that much attention to the few hundred big heads and silvers we caught... I was too busy using them for batting practice.

I've seen some skinny paddlers too, but also some healthy looking ones. Where are you fishing? I don't think there is any data on Ohio River paddlefish, in the range where Asian carp are abundant, but I'd like to know, especially if there was pre-carp data.

[bowman15]

Because of how I was raving that bigheads taste so good, my buddy took one of the ones we shot monday home and filleted it. There was alot of red in the meat. That's the stuff we don't want to eat, correct? I figured it was probably because of all the pollution in the DesPlaines River. I told him not to eat it.

[Vlad the Impailer]

Where are you fishing?

we were fishing the mississippi, at the alton dam and at the clarksville dam.

[Fishhunter]

bowman, the red stuff is real nasty tasting. Eat only firm, white meat. The drop in condition factor results in a jelly-like clear mea that isn't worth eating.