For smoked grass carp: Smoke fillets or steaks using indirect heat degrees F for at least 4 hours until flaky. Adult grass carp spawn in late spring when the water is warming. Hormone injections force spawning. All sizes are available at any time of the year. For a list of producers in your area, contact your county Alabama Cooperative Extension System agent. Grass carp are sold by commercial fish dealers across Alabama.
It is a federal offense to violate state laws that prohibit the possession, transportation, or sale of grass carp. Many states require special permits to possess or transport this fish. Most states, including Florida, Georgia, and Tennessee, require that grass carp be certified sterile triploids. Fertile grass carp are not illegal in Alabama and can, therefore, be used freely. Before transporting grass carp across state lines, check with the natural resource agencies in all the states you will be crossing to determine the legality of transporting the fish through their state.
Table 3 provides recommended grass carp stocking sizes and rates for use in ponds. Stock larger grass carp 8 to 10 inches in ponds with established bass populations. Stock smaller fingerlings 2 to 6 inches only where no predators exist or in newly stocked ponds where the predators are about the same size as the grass carp. Smaller fingerlings can also be stocked in catfish ponds. Grass carp are readily eaten by bass and other predatory fishes.
It takes time for grass carp to bring a weed problem under control. Weeds may or may not be controlled by the end of the first growing season. If weeds continue to flourish during the second year, then stock more grass carp.
You may need to restock with enough fish to bring the total number in the pond up to the maximum normal recommended rate of 20 fish per acre. For control of difficult weeds, you may need to use herbicides to reduce the problem. Then rely on grass carp to maintain control. If the weed you want to control is not a favorite of the grass carp, you may need to try other control methods.
After the weeds are gone in ponds that are stocked at the maximum rate, about half of the grass carp can be removed. If the grass carp are left in these ponds, the remaining fish will not have enough food. The fish can be selectively harvested by angling, by using a large mesh gill net, by applying 0. While grass carp are excellent table fare, it is generally not advisable to eat fish killed with rotenone.
Grass carp can also be used for weed control in catfish production ponds. After three growing seasons, refer to the map. If the desired results have not been achieved, you may want to increase the number of grass carp in the pond, but do not exceed the next highest rate shown in the "How Much To Stock" section above.
There are generally two circumstances that lead to harvesting grass carp from a pond. Observations of plant growth and reference to your vegetation map will help determine when restocking is necessary. Before restocking, it is very important that a similar number of fish be removed from the pond.
There are several methods of attempting this. Grass carp can be very difficult to catch with a pole and line. They are a very cautious and reclusive fish, preferring to feed unobserved. Their capture makes the effort gratifying due to grass carp being spectacular fighters on a line and very difficult to land.
If you decide to attempt pole and line fishing for grass carp, try first chumming the area to be fished with whole kernel canned corn. Then, fish the area using canned corn, worms, a dough bait with a vegetation base, or pieces of vegetation like lettuce, pea pods, or cherry tomatoes as bait. Remember, grass carp are primarily herbivores, so vegetable baits are the most effective. Bowfishing is often an effective method of harvesting grass carp, especially in smaller ponds.
If you do not bowhunt, contact a local bowhunter organization for volunteers to remove the excess grass carp. Many bow hunters are eager for the challenge of stalking this wary prey. Grass carp can be difficult to capture alive because they escape seines by leaping.
One of the most effective methods of seining grass carp is to repeatedly bait a small cove. The landowner can block off the cove while the fish are eating, giving them a much smaller area to escape to if they avoid the seine. If captured alive, grass carp may be stocked into other waters with weed problems. This method allows landowners to avoid waiting for the fish to reach a large enough size to affect the vegetation.
Grass carp killed during their capture may be prepared for the table. They are considered an excellent food fish worldwide, often praised for both their flavor and texture.
Common carp degrade water quality and destroy habitat for waterfowl, fish and amphibians. While searching for food, carp burrow into lake sediments and in the process they uproot aquatic vegetation, increasing water turbidity and releasing large quantities of sediment-bound nutrients, which stimulate algal blooms. Do carp eat frogs? They really love finding worms, but they aren't picky.
As Carp stir up the roots of underwater foliage, many other creatures are revealed. Carp have no problem gobbling up Crawdads, frogs, or even smaller fish. Carp will eat just about anything they find down there that's alive. Do Grass carp eat leaves? Grass carp are opportunistic herbivores that will consume a variety of aquatic plants. Some common plants they will readily consume are hydrilla, elodea, bladderwort, coontail, najas, milfoil, potomegton spp. Ponds can be surprisingly inexpensive to install.
Is there money in fish farming? Fish farming is no doubt profitable. This is especially so when they feed at the low end of food chain or when cheap but nutritious ingredients are used in making fish feed. The downsides? If stocked at a high enough density early in the year before plants germinate, grass carp will consume all vegetation within their selective diet. This can be a negative because bare ponds leave young of the year YOY and juvenile fish with little refuge.
As a result, eradicating vegetation can cause a balanced fishery to quickly turn upside down, especially systems that are not very nutritionally productive via plankton. If growing big largemouth bass is an important goal consider adding dense cover for small fish prior to eradicating undesired vegetation.
This can be done by planting beneficial emergent vegetation , such as pickerelweed and duck potato in shallow water and by adding a bunch of dense manmade or natural materials to water less than five feet deep. Another drawback for those managing fishing ponds is grass carp can get lazy and park themselves in front of your fish feeders , especially if there is no vegetation left in the pond. If you use fish feeders as a primary way to increase productivity, then understand grass carp will likely compete for fish feed at some point, typically as they get a few years under their scales.
If they are observed eating fish feed you should harvest them. The most common method of removing grass carp is to shoot them or fish them out. An additional drawback is that grass carp are a riverine fish and have the tendency to want to travel.
They seem to gravitate to the sound of moving water, so depending on the pond; they may be difficult to keep from escaping downstream. To fix this issue plan to make an adjustment to the water bodies outflow so carp cannot escape. In fact, many states require that outflow of the pond be modified so fish do not escape.
While this fish may seem to be a magic bullet, be sure to think beyond the obvious. Once you determine grass carp will target your invasive plants , think what happens next. For example, one scenario to consider is a pond with elevated nutrient load and also choked with submersed aquatic vegetation, such as hydrilla or milfoil. In these situations, stocking grass carp at a high rate such as fish per acre will often eradicate the vegetation and leave even higher nutrient loads, making the pond prone to dense algae blooms.
If this is the case, you may need to consider applying algaecides to control the undesired algae and also implement management strategies that help to lower the nutrient level. Ponds in areas with runoff can minimize this risk through flushing with fresher water.
Prior to stocking grass carp you should first be able to answer the following questions properly: Are they legal in your state?
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