Grass Carp Advice

[Pineywoods]

Curt, I have a little 30 acre private lake by the house that some folks ruined by putting some sterile grass carp in it. They have devastated the bass habitat and have eaten everything green like a goat with the munchies. I'm not sure this little lake will ever recover.

[Slabby]

Don't trust them to be sterile. I can show you multiple ponds stocked 35 years ago that have young ones in them now. And something no one has mentioned, I would not trust swimming around them (especially kids). I have had them hit the boat more times than I can count when spooked. 50 lb torpedoes. There have been instances of people injured and even killed (drowned) while trying to sein them. Like someone mentioned.....build a dock. Besides that, fishing that grass is where the fun is

[Huntingfool]

If your pond grass (hydrilla, etc.) gets out of control then your fish will also suffer- the pond can reach a point where it cannot be fished. I have used sterile grass carp for years - I have about 20 in my 2 acre pond - if they get too large we take them out. But I still have grass around my pond banks that are great hiding places for young fish. I also have tons of structure in the pond where fish can find cover. We have multiple 6-8 lbs bass in this pond - so IMO sterile grass carp can help keep a pond healthy

[McClain]

Guys, I’m surprised a fish biologist has not posted in this thread. While I am not totally up to date on this aspect of fishery management, there does appears to be some misconceptions here. Only sterile grass carp are available to purchase in Texas and they are sterile because they have an extra set of chromosomes (Triploidy) and cannot reproduce. This technology is old enough and tested sufficiently that I think it is mostly foolproof these days. Even normal grass carp would not likely be able to reproduce in ponds. They require a strong current (as in rivers) to spawn. So it’s highly unlikely they will reproduce in ponds.

Tilapia is not a good choice for weed control. They eat microscopic plants (like algae) and not large rooted vascular plants. They will also die when water temperatures get to 50 to 55 degrees depending on how quickly the temperature drops. There are a couple of Tilapia species that maybe slightly more cold tolerant but only a few degrees different.

By the way, grass carp are good to eat, especially smoked. They do have a lot of small bones as do our native carp, but once the fish reaches 15 or more pounds, it’s easy to eat around all those bones. So don’t let those large grass carp go to waste.

[Slabby]

White Amur that are supposed to be sterile (triploid) reproducing in ponds with no real current is certainly not a misconception

[Chase This!]

Correct. You’ll be getting triploid carp. We added them. Most got eaten. 10-12” weren’t big enough. Go BIG. But they are hard to find.

They are easy to shock and get rid of once they have done their job.

[Chase This!]

Or you can spend a pile of money on AquaThol. Could try that first. Assume we are talking about bushy pondweed.