Carp fishing tournament @ deal lake in Asbury park

[ScowardNJ]

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

.

Originally Posted by 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.

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]

Originally Posted by 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.

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...arp/index.html

[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. 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.