Carp event clears tons of fish from lake

The common carp (Cyprinus carpio) is a remarkable fish, revered around the world as a game fish and a food fish, but, alas, the carp’s reputation is lacking in the United States. I included the scientific name because you will need to know it to understand the poem at the end of this article.

However, the common carp was very popular at Lake Campbell last weekend. It was Carp Tourney Day, sponsored by Kattails Campground & Recreation and the Lake Campbell Sportsmen’s Club. Some 32 boats roared past the starter boat at 9 a.m. and returned to the launch site at 3 p.m.. Then, the anglers trailered boats with the carp catch to Kattails for the weigh-in, which was indeed a spectacle with serious prize money at stake.

About 4,000 pounds of carp were caught. The largest carp weighed 33 lbs. The team catching the most fish had 24 carp. The award for the heaviest 10 fish went to the team with 171 lbs. There were awards to young fisher-persons (boy and girl awards), and the top eight teams received cash awards amounting to several hundred dollars each.

However, the most talked about award was for 7th Place, a whopping $1,000 – for SEVENTH place!

When the sponsor of the 7th place award was revealed and asked to speak, he said that the best or luckiest anglers are always rewarded, but he wanted to reward the ones who try. Perhaps that’s why more people decided to give carp fishing a try this year than in previous years in this tourney.

Fishery biologists will say that the tournament can’t remove enough carp to improve the lake — but it’s fun, and can’t hurt. About 60% of the carp, or approximately 72,000 pounds of carp in Lake Campbell’s case, need to be removed before causing even a temporary reduction in the population. The Lake Campbell folks saw some serious carp removal in 2014 when a commercial fish seiner removed 75,000 pounds of carp and buffalo fish. The principles of fish ecology say that the empty “space” left by the harvested carp is filled by better survival, growth and reproduction of the remainder; academics say the responses are “compensatory.”

Game, Fish and Parks allowed a commercial fisherman into Lake Campbell in 2014; the fisherman paid a few cents a pound for catching the public-owned resource. Lake Campbell residents watched as a long seine, with a 4-inch mesh that captures only large fish, was deployed three times in the upper, middle, and lower lake. Each time the net circled several acres of water. The seine was drawn slowly toward waiting net pens, where game fish were tossed back into the lake. The captured fish were placed in water-filled tanks that made a full load for a tractor-trailer truck.

What do commercial fishermen do with the fish? That is a fascinating story. There’s a saying about pigs — “It is all used but the squeal.” In 2008, I visited Stoller Fish Company in Spirit Lake, Iowa to follow the carp trail in commerce. There was nothing left of the carp after the processing. Here is a quick summary of what I learned from Larry Stoller, third-generation carp fisherman and President of Stoller.

The most valuable part of the fish is the pea-sized pituitary gland, which is loaded with hormones. It is dried and sold at about $10/gram to fish farmers who rehydrate the tissue and inject it into mature, gravid female fish. The shot causes ovulation, which helps fish hatchery managers plan hatchery production.

There are dozens of other products made from the carp, many to satisfy food traditions of ethnic groups. For example, the Greek specialty, taramasalata, is made from carp eggs. Mr. Stoller said, “We are successful because we have good rabbinic control.” I looked into the butcher shop and saw Jewish Rabbis hard at work making kosher fish products. Stoller shipped to fish markets in Chicago, New York and Memphis.

Carp are processed into fillets, fish sticks, and patties for mid-western markets. A restaurant in Omaha (Joe Tess Place) was famous for carp sandwiches (I ate one) and carp dinners. Some carp are smoked — I’ve seen this product in the HyVee seafood case in Brookings. I’ve made pickled carp and carp sausage — it’s good!

Some meat is minced for dehydrated soup bases and fish stocks. The eggs (caviar) are also used for sauces, creamed soups, dips and garnishes.

Carp heads are sold to bait commercial fish traps, and the gut is sliced into 6-inch lengths for fish bait. The air bladder can be dried and ground to powdery isinglass, which is used as a wine clarifier. The skeleton, called the rack, is ground into bone meal.

The remaining “offal” may become fish meal, formulated fish food or liquid fish fertilizer. That’s it, the carp is totally gone!

Carp are not native to the United States. European settlers once longed for a taste of home, and the U.S. Fish Commission responded by stocking carp. Carp fry were stocked in South Dakota waters from 1886 to 1911. Carp are a prized game fish in many countries, and are also prized by some anglers in the U.S. for their fighting ability and large size.

The world record carp caught by a fly fisherman in 2017 is a 43- pound whopper from Lake Poinsett. Sometimes the carp’s image is burnished by a name change, e.g., bugle-mouth bass.

In general, though, the carp has a bad reputation in the US, and is called a “rough” fish (I prefer the term “nongame fish”). Nongame fish control was one of the early GFP activities, as in 1909 when 566,000 pounds of nongame fish were seined from the State lakes and streams.

The nongame fish are removed sometimes as a fish management tool, and sometimes, as during the 1930s, for people food. For example, about 1,200 tons of carp were removed from Lake Andes and distributed in seven counties in the 1930s.

Former GFP Fisheries Chief, Mr. Robert Hanton wrote about the history of commercial fishing (Chapter 15 in The History of Fish and Fishing in South Dakota, https://gfp.sd.gov/gifts/).

The carp also gets a bad rap from wildlife biologists, particularly waterfowl biologists.

Carp cause muddy water that reduces growth of submergent plants, like Sago pondweed, that are duck food. But the history of controlling carp on waterfowl refuges is for another story.

For now, the majority opinion of the common carp (Cyprinus carpio) is summed up in the following anonymous poem.

The ubiquitous carp and brown trout
Came from Europe with sponsors devout

Salmo trutta won fame, but who is to blame

For the cyprind we should’a kept out!

PS. A 33-page recipe booklet titled Crafty Carp Cookery is available from the SDSU Agricultural Experiment Station, published in 1976 by SDSU’s Department of Home Economics.