Carp fishing tournament @ deal lake in Asbury park

[MikeD]

So I'm a little upset over this. I found a flyer for a carp fishing tournament at deal lake in Asbury Park on Sunday April 13th. I thought this was great. A good opportunity to fish for some carp and talk to some fellow carp anglers, until I found out that the purpose of this tournament is to kill as many carp as possible ( because they believe common carp are an invasive species).


What are your thoughts on this?

[Gatto1227]

I've heard both ends of the argument on this one. Some people don't think they are a problem and some people think that they kill vegetation and eat other species eggs.

[jmurr711]

killing carp :(

http://image.b4in.net/resources/2013/09/18/1379528202-sadpanda.gif

[acabtp]

so long as it's legal, the anglers clean up after themselves and the fish doesn't just go to waste, i don't really have much of an opinion either way on the carp, but welcome to NJFishing!

[saxmatt]

Maybe my buddies and I should prebait a spot for a few weeks to get them all in 1 area then go and catch and release a bunch of fish right in front of them ;)

[MikeD]

Maybe my buddies and I should prebait a spot for a few weeks to get them all in 1 area then go and catch and release a bunch of fish right in front of them ;)

Matt, that's exactly what I wanted to do. I think I'm going to go and just catch and release as many as possible in front of them.

[saxmatt]

Is there a specific spot on the lake where they're holding the tournament? I might come down and bring a bunch of carp fisherman with me. The best way to fight ignorance is education.

[MikeD]

Is there a specific spot on the lake where they're holding the tournament? I might come down and bring a bunch of carp fisherman with me. The best way to fight ignorance is education.

I'm with you Matt. Im going to go. On the flyer it says you can fish any where you want on the lake and the weighins are before noon at the deal lake flume.

Check out these two links below

http://www.deallake.org/2nd-annual-deal-lake-carp-contest-sun-april-13/


http://www.deallake.org/carp-contest-on-april-21st/

[ScowardNJ]

Is there a specific spot on the lake where they're holding the tournament? I might come down and bring a bunch of carp fisherman with me. The best way to fight ignorance is education.

Pardon my ignorance but where would I find information on the benefits of common carp populations in the US? Besides being fun as hell to catch, all the info I find leans towards their destructive behavior.

[saxmatt]

Carp were brought in from Europe over 100 years ago as a food fish. A lot of places in populated areas were fished out so we stocked carp and other species that aren't native to NJ like largemouth bass and brown trout to replace the native species. Carp are still utilized as a food fish by many people in NJ. Most of the places with the best gamefish populations also have healthy carp populations, like Lake Hopatcong and Spruce Run. Contrary to what a lot of people think they coexist very well with other species and baby carp are an excellent food source for predators.

[jtjr09]

In the summer deal lake suffers from lack of oxygen and many of the carp are found dead floating in the lake. This is one of the main reasons that this has been done the last two years. It has nothing to do with them being a nuisance.

[Eskimo]

.


In the summer deal lake suffers from lack of oxygen and many of the carp are found dead floating in the lake. This is one of the main reasons that this has been done the last two years. It has nothing to do with them being a nuisance.

Carp are the toughest fish around. If they can't survive being in that water, I can't imagine what could.

During that drought we had a few summers back, I saw a pond with carp floundering around in a few inches of water with their backs out of the water. I assumed they were all going to die, but they manged to stay that way for the rest of the summer and most of them survived the drought!

I guess the best thing about carp is they can survive in just about anything and privde fishing opportunites in bodies of water that normally wouldn't hold big fish.



.

[saxmatt]

Carp can handle extremely low oxygen levels. They are running the tournament because they think carp are an invasive species and are damaging the lake. Sometimes lakes suffer massive fish kills and carp are the only species that survive in numbers because they are tolerant of extreme conditions. When people see there are only carp left in the lake they blame the carp for the decline in fishing for other species. In reality, carp had nothing to do with the decline, there were just able to survive harsher conditions than the other fish. I think this is what happened at Deal Lake. During the hurricanes the ocean flooded into the lake. Carp can tolerate salty water and most other freshwater species can't. I bet a bunch of people complained they're not catching bass anymore and think it's the carps fault. It's just a lack of knowledge. The solution to the problem is restocking whatever fish died after the hurricane, not kill all the carp.

[ScowardNJ]

All good points. There is no denying their destructive qualities also. They can decimate a water body's vegetation which could, in turn, effect O2 levels and spawning habitat for other fish species. I'm not saying that's what's going on in Deal Lake, Sandy laid the smack down on that place so there could be all kind of factors affecting fish populations. A carp population held in check probably isn't a bad thing, but when they take over a water body, it's a bad thing. The same thing goes for any animal population i guess.

[MikeD]

All good points. There is no denying their destructive qualities also. They can decimate a water body's vegetation which could, in turn, effect O2 levels and spawning habitat for other fish species. I'm not saying that's what's going on in Deal Lake, Sandy laid the smack down on that place so there could be all kind of factors affecting fish populations. A carp population held in check probably isn't a bad thing, but when they take over a water body, it's a bad thing. The same thing goes for any animal population i guess.

When you say they can decimate a water body's vegetation I believe you are referring to grass carp. In this case they targeting common carp which is the only species of carp in deal lake. Correct me if I am wrong.

[ScowardNJ]

A quick search found this

http://www.dnr.state.mn.us/invasives/aquaticanimals/commoncarp/index.html

[jtjr09]

The day after Sandy when the water receeded there where hundreds of dead carp in the streets and in the 7/11 parking lot.

[saxmatt]

Grass carp can eat all the weeds in a pond, that's why golf courses stock them. Common carp don't really eat weeds though. I fish some weed choked ponds that are loaded with common carp. They primarily eat insects, crayfish, mussels, worms, nuts, berries, and small baitfish. If a bunch of them are feeding in a muddy area they will make the water muddy, but what's the problem with that? Boat traffic, wind and rain erodes the shore and makes the water a lot muddier than carp do.

[MikeD]

According to NJ fish and wildlife common carp are not an invasive species. On the other hand grass carp, big head carp and silver carp are invasive species. Getting back to my point of starting this thread their are no other species of carp in deal lake besides common carp. So why are thy killing them.

http://njfishandwildlife.org/aquatic_invasives.htm

http://www.state.nj.us/dep/fgw/pdf/fishfact/carp.pdf

[Gatto1227]

Down in the Raritan near me it seems over the years I find less small mouth, large mouth and bait fish and so many dam carp everywhere. Huge numbers of Carp. Some times it's insane how many carp you'll see in one spot..

[kmaty]

Let fill ten buckets full of corn and berrys Chum the hell outa the carp when all the anglers run ovr to catch we throw them in...their right about one thing thinning the heard works less fishermen less people fishing!

[tautog]

Bassmasters love killing things that allegedly hurt bass populations. They decimated the population of large pickerel there, now they are blaming the carp. They seems to ignore saltwater intrusion, siltation from overdevelopment, pollution from the cesspool city on the South side and the fishermen who keep anything that bites.

[catfishonthelake]

I don't know about you guys, but catching 15 inch bass and 10 inch trout gets me way more jazzed than catching a 20 pound carp. :rolleyes: Stopped by Nomahegan today. Don't even get me started. Place is a mud pit, albeit a slightly deeper mud pit with some expensive looking dead plants on the shore and a hell of a lot less carp. They stocked it with trout though. Yippee.

[Wilson]

I don't know about you guys, but catching 15 inch bass and 10 inch trout gets me way more jazzed than catching a 20 pound carp. :rolleyes: Stopped by Nomahegan today. Don't even get me started. Place is a mud pit, albeit a slightly deeper mud pit with some expensive looking dead plants on the shore and a hell of a lot less carp. They stocked it with trout though. Yippee.
I hit there this past Sunday, and I have to agree with you. And what's with all that rope piled on the shore and stretched into the water?
And lots of garbage too in spite of numerous trash cans all about.

[SplitShot]

I live right by the headwaters of Deal Lake and fished the tournament last year... caught some nice big carp, but couldn't justify to myself just killing them and not eating them, so I released them back in. I'll be there tomorrow morning and with the argument going both ways, I'll be releasing again..

And I've seen massive fish kills there during the summer but I believe its all the crap that gets thrown in there more then anything.

[Fish_Harder]

I am in. Sunday is catch and release day at Deal Lake. Hope to see a lot of you there.

[saxmatt]

I'm planning on going with some of my buddies. If any of you guys want to fish with us or want to come by to check out the gear and bait we use come say hi.

[FASTEDDIE29]

What are the chances of problems occurring at this event? I may come down to relieve some stress. That will only happen if I work a 14 hour day tomorrow. Isn't there supposed to be toothy critters in that body of trashy water? If yes, did they all die in the storm? I'm curious!!!

GO GET EM FELLAZ!!!!!:D

[saxmatt]

Hopefully there won't be any problems. We'll certainly stand out with all our gear and our loud bite alarms going off every time we get a fish, but we're not looking for trouble. If anyone harasses us we'll just call fish and game or the police. A warden should stop by around noon anyway just to make sure none of the fish they kill are being wasted.

[Fish_Harder]

So who else wants to play catch and release with us? Should be a fun day. Look at the rest of nj. Are common carp an issue? There is no reason to kill these fish in this manner.

[tautog]

I will probably swing by in the late morning because my cod trip got cancelled. Keep in mind it is probably going to be 15-20 South most of the morning tomorrow and Deal Lake is right by the ocean so plan your spots accordingly. Don't think I'll fish because my freshwater rods are all ultralights and there are much bigger carp in there than were caught in the last tourny. I would get spooled by a 20lber on my gear.

[tautog]

Drove around some of the lake and saw no one fishing other than a bassboat. Must have looked in the wrong spots. Hope you got some. I went to one of my ponds and had 3 small bass on topwater.

[SplitShot]

After trout fishing from 6-9am, I swung around the lake seeing who was fishing.... didn't see too many ..... stopped by the RR tracks and saw one guy with 6 carp.... hardly anyone west of the RR....:confused:

[jtjr09]

There were a good amount of guys fishing up in the fingers off Sunset Ave and North Wanamassa drive. About 20 fish total weighed in. Largest was just under 11lbs.

[Fish_Harder]

Myself, Saxmatt, Miked and a few others were fishing right at the route 71 bridge on the southwest side.

we put in a lot of hours and fished for over 11 hours with just one fish being landed. Saxmatt took the fish. The fish was a bit over 11 pounds and looked to be very healthy. safely returned to fight another day.

One of our group went over near the weigh station around noon and said they had 8 fish waiting to be weighed.

It was a fun day except for the wind. My thanks to Miked and SaxMatt for teaching the noob how to target these fish. The education alone was worth the time and effort. I look forward to fishing with you again real soon.

[Wilson]

A little late to this post as I had some business to take of.

The catch and kill tournament was not well attended as best as we could see.
Saw the Bat Mobile and fog!!
Saxmatt caught one and that was it.
These Carp guys are balls out fishermen, with hundreds of dollars of equipment.
Had fun and met some very passionate fishermen.

And it was effing cold and windy for the 6 hours I was there. 82 degrees when I rolled in the driveway:eek:

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[saxmatt]

It was a fun day even though the fish didn't cooperate for us. Good meeting you guys, we'll have to do it again.

[tautog]

Can't believe that I didn't see you. Fishing is usually better up in the back areas at Deal Lake. Guess the cold kept the fish bite down because there is a decent population of fish there with some fairly big ones in the 20-30lb class.

[saxmatt]

We were definitely in the wrong spot.