Thread: Asian carp

That’s a LOT of carp for sure!!


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Seems to me that may be the best solution for now. Allow the commercial fisherman to shock them and harvest them just leave the sport fish. Just my 2 cents.


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big market for them in asian communities, animal feed and as natural fertilizer instead of chemicals. give financial incentives to make operations profitable and they will come and greatly reduce these things.

will that work for crappie lol

Originally Posted by hdhntr

big market for them in asian communities, animal feed and as natural fertilizer instead of chemicals. give financial incentives to make operations profitable and they will come and greatly reduce these things.

I wouldn't call it "big" as without all the subsidies being provided by KDFWR and the government there would not be enough incentive to go after them.

It's taken a BUNCH of effort to get the subsidies in place and the get the price up to around $0.15 per pound.

As for it's use in the Asian market, surimi is what's being turned into, which is basically fish paste, and commonly sold as imitation crab meat. I don't know if you've bought much surimi before, but it's cheap.

As for it's use in animal feed, the processing costs are high leading to an expensive product that most people aren't willing to pay extra for. There are a couple of dog food brands currently using Asian carp as the protein source, and it's crazy expensive.

As for it's use as fertilizer, the processing costs are high compared to existing less expensive sources, making it a product with higher costs than the standard.

So when you say "big market for them in asian communities, animal feed and as natural fertilizer instead of chemicals" it sounds good and all, but if it were true it would have happened already. It's taken public interest and public outcry to get the money flowing to help with the problem, money has always been the biggest hurdle in this battle.

Originally Posted by dannyr3_8

will that work for crappie lol

Absolutely, which I believe is why the method has to be heavily regulated with stiff penalties for harvesting anything but Asian carp.

artcarney, the 'shocking' seems to be the way to go for these especially at the 'blockade' areas below the dams where they are sitting and waiting to move into the lakes through the locks. Don't know what the 'shocking' equipment costs, but from the pictures I saw, it's a very quick and efficient method for the commercial fishermen to use below these dams and may be more efficient time wise than using nets if the equipment cost is not too high. Hopefully, our KY wildlife people can get this method approved for the commercial fishermen, especially below Barkley and KY dams.

Originally Posted by perchjerker108

artcarney, the 'shocking' seems to be the way to go for these especially at the 'blockade' areas below the dams where they are sitting and waiting to move into the lakes through the locks. Don't know what the 'shocking' equipment costs, but from the pictures I saw, it's a very quick and efficient method for the commercial fishermen to use below these dams and may be more efficient time wise than using nets if the equipment cost is not too high. Hopefully, our KY wildlife people can get this method approved for the commercial fishermen, especially below Barkley and KY dams.

Yep. I don't know a whole lot about the shocking process, but I would think it would require extensive training and safety measures since there's elevated risk anytime you've got electricity and water mixing together.

I would think it's also a slippery slope to the method as well, due to trying to be fair to those who are using traditional methods of netting. I don't know what the shocking method equipment would cost, but I bet it's not cheap.

I thought for a while KDFWR was testing the use of a combo of a Paupier net and the electrofishing method. I haven't seen much on that for a while now. I guess it wasn't as effective as they had hoped, or maybe the by-catch of paddlefish was too high? I would think shocking and then having nets that you could crank up with winches would be an effective method to hauling big numbers of carp into the boat versus one at a time with a dipnet.