Thread: How Many Grass Carp?

Be careful what you wish for. Growing up, we had a 4 acre pond that always had weed and grass issues. We stocked it with grass carp 2 per acre. 3 years later pond was immaculate and the grass neatly trimmed about 4' up the bank, Never understood that one until frog gigging one night and low and behold saw three of them huge grass carp mostly out of the water and grazing away. Told my dad and he said I needed to catch 2 or 3 and move them to another pond.

Took a while but I finally succeded and the first pond came back nicely, a few weeds in the shallow end some stuff on the very bottom. The pond we moved the three into also got cleaned up, a bit slower and never was devoid of vegetation. They say once these fish reach 3 feet their appetite decreases but I'm not sure. They are eating machines and when properly stocked I think very useful but overstocking/overselling leads to serious problems. My current pond is about an acre and I was told to put 2 in and see how it goes for a year. One died a couple months later, not sure why. But the following spring still had some weeds but not enough to worry about. The pond management guys I talked to said sounds good but in 5-6 years you need to add another one or 2.

Have 2 in a 1 1/2 acre pond. Put them in after we cleaned out and made deeper. Have had no problem with weeds. 4 years old and about 3 ft long now.