Where are my carp?

[Ruark]

About 5 weeks ago, I bought a couple of triploid carp to put in our tank for weed control. It's a small teardrop-shaped pond, about 150' by 100' and is about 15' deep in the main part. Underwater weeds are pretty thick around most of the edges, going out about 6 feet, and some of them have come to the top.

Anyway, I've been out there all hours of the day and night, and I have YET to see those carp. I thought they like to come to the surface and in the shallows in the summer sun. I hope they didn't just go belly-up.

[Mr. Whiskers]

How big were they? Do you have bass?

[Ruark]

How big were they? Do you have bass?

They were 10" - 12". No bass - the pond's too little. I put in 125 3" hybrid bluegills and 4 lbs. of fathead minnows. I feed the bluegills daily with floating fish food. The bluegills are doing great - many of them are 4" or 5" now.

It seems like some of the weed is shrinking a little - it isn't spreading, anyway -
but I don't know if it's the carp or not.

One thing I did notice was that when I put the carp into the water, one of them laid belly-up for a few minutes, then straightened up and swam away. Hope that wasn't an omen.

[Backwoods101]

Tagged, just filled out our application

[Gil67]

Carp can tolerate low oxygen levels plus if you've had a mass die off I would have thought you would have found dead fish. I would try baiting one of the shallow margins where you can see the bottom with something like sinking trout pellets or sweet corn if they are still there they will find it

[bigdaddy590]

I may be misspeaking but I believe it takes at least a year before the carp will start eating the vegetation.

[huntresss]

We have put grass carp in all of our ponds and I thought the same thing as you each time. It takes them about three years to become visible. I thought the carp in our front pond were long gone since I have never seen them in over five years, then one night while spotlighting bullfrogs I saw this submarine ease past me. I can't believe a fish that big could stay hidden that long!

[Ruark]

We have put grass carp in all of our ponds and I thought the same thing as you each time. It takes them about three years to become visible. I thought the carp in our front pond were long gone since I have never seen them in over five years, then one night while spotlighting bullfrogs I saw this submarine ease past me. I can't believe a fish that big could stay hidden that long!

That's good to know, Huntress! I guess they're just "down there somewhere" doing their carp thing.

[TxDispatcher]

We had one that finally died last year, after 9 years of feasting. I saw him 3 times in the last 2 years...and he was a brute! Amazing how stealthy they are. Unfortunately, he was the last one we had left. And this year it shows. The grass/weeds are out of hand. I'm going to be pulling a crap load of weeds out over the next few weeks. And plan on building a rebar fence at the dam overflow next spring and getting a few more put in

[mavrick]

I put 5 in my pond, I thought they all were dead/gone. We drained the pond to do some work 4 were still alive and weight about 15 pounds a piece we just never saw them.