bm_attar wrote:Steven, tell us more about the carp population there
Catch and Release for Dow's Lake
Hi Folks -
I can't provide much "science" re the carp population in Dow's Lake but this is what we do know.
1. We put radio tags into 60 carp and NEVER recaptured a single fish during our research angling. In other words, there are plenty of carp to catch! If we recaptured some of them we would have been able to generate a population estimate but that never happened. And for the record, our tagged fish were moving all over the place so the reason we did not recapture them was not because they were dead. I did hear of a single recapture by an angler this spring. The radio tags are designed to fall off (although not a perfect system) but all fish will have a small grey (perhaps algae covered) tag on their side with a fish ID number and my lab phone number.
2. We had good days and bad days when fishing. "Team Germany" would get up at 3 am and pre-bait and then start fishing at 4:30 am. Using two or three rods and between 4:30 am and noon we would catch between zero and seven fish (3 or so was average).
3. The carp in Dow's were usually captured with corn. We used boilies early on but the corn was hard to beat (and cheaper). The German student (Tobi) had housemates that weren't too keen on his stinky boilie making efforts so the corn switch was not just because of catch rates.
4. I just read the first draft of the carp study last week (130 pages!!!). The focus was on catch-and-release. We looked at using carp sacks to hold onto fish so that photos could be obtained in better light conditions (if you are not a carp angler this won't make any sense!!!). Not suprisingly, carp were able to handle a broad range of stressors. We did see some sublethal alterations (physiology, behaviour) but nothing that lasted beyond a day or so.
I will post a link to our carp work when it is ready for the world to see!
SJC
I can't provide much "science" re the carp population in Dow's Lake but this is what we do know.
1. We put radio tags into 60 carp and NEVER recaptured a single fish during our research angling. In other words, there are plenty of carp to catch! If we recaptured some of them we would have been able to generate a population estimate but that never happened. And for the record, our tagged fish were moving all over the place so the reason we did not recapture them was not because they were dead. I did hear of a single recapture by an angler this spring. The radio tags are designed to fall off (although not a perfect system) but all fish will have a small grey (perhaps algae covered) tag on their side with a fish ID number and my lab phone number.
2. We had good days and bad days when fishing. "Team Germany" would get up at 3 am and pre-bait and then start fishing at 4:30 am. Using two or three rods and between 4:30 am and noon we would catch between zero and seven fish (3 or so was average).
3. The carp in Dow's were usually captured with corn. We used boilies early on but the corn was hard to beat (and cheaper). The German student (Tobi) had housemates that weren't too keen on his stinky boilie making efforts so the corn switch was not just because of catch rates.
4. I just read the first draft of the carp study last week (130 pages!!!). The focus was on catch-and-release. We looked at using carp sacks to hold onto fish so that photos could be obtained in better light conditions (if you are not a carp angler this won't make any sense!!!). Not suprisingly, carp were able to handle a broad range of stressors. We did see some sublethal alterations (physiology, behaviour) but nothing that lasted beyond a day or so.
I will post a link to our carp work when it is ready for the world to see!
SJC
S. Cooke
Professor
Biology and Environmental Science
Carleton University
Professor
Biology and Environmental Science
Carleton University