carptracker

Part of the problem is that, in their native environment, I believe that avian predators were historically very hard on Asian carps, especially bigheads and grass carp, that often feed on or near the surface. So they are very tied into things going on above the water's surface, more so than most fish. The other thing is that carps are truly among the smartest of fish. I can guarantee you that my tagged fish are REALLY hard to recapture. They tend to remember being caught in a net, dragged out of the water, sliced open, various foreign objects jammed inside of them, then sewed back up. They don't want it to happen again. When I do recapture a fish, usually I have caught most all the other fish from behind that wingdike first. And I get most of the natives before I get most of the Asian carps. Asian carps rarely just blunder into a trammel or gill net, especially not a multifilament net (you have to use monofilament). Most native fish just don't know what a net is and just swim right in. I think Asian carps have been fished really hard in Asia for a lot of years (Chinese are good fishers) and have the net thing superimposed on their genes. They know what a net is before they ever see one.

(all that said, the smartest fish in the world isn't as smart as a retarded mouse. But they are superbly adapted to their environment, so they seem smarter to us.)