Cheryl and I caught this Grass Carp - it took both of us to bring it in. We Released the Fish. One of us hooked it and the other netted.
It hasn’t been that long ago that our Lake was choked with hydrilla. The combined effort of The Lake Conroe Association, Texas Park & Wildlife, SJRA and many other organizations and contributors to the “Grass Carp Fund”, that we have little or no grass in the Lake at this time. We do have LOTS of “Grass Carp” and more and more people are catching them when fishing. We are finding that many don’t have a clue as to what kind of fish they have caught and are not aware that they have to be released.
At this time a Triploid Grass Carp Permit is in effect on this lake. If a grass carp is caught, it must be immediately returned to the water unharmed. The purpose of this post is to be sure those fishing the Lake know what a “Grass Carp” looks like and if they catch one, that they should be sure and return it to the Lake.
We have always had a lot of different openions as to how many, at what time, under what circumstances and wheather there should be any grass carp introduced to the Lake at all. As is the case with most efforts, there are two very opposing sides to these questions. If you feel like sounding off and can do it in good taste, fire away and let us know your thoughts.
I am surprised you even mention ‘grass carp’ on a fishing blog. These fish have eaten every bit of grass in this Lake. We have had several of our best years of Black Bass Fishing with four ShareLunker Bass caught in 2009 and the crappie fishing has been real good this year. All of these fish had plenty of grass to hide in and grow to maturity before the grass carp were put into the Lake to eat all of their natural hidding places. I understand we need to manage the hydrilla; but, we have once again stocked the Lake with way to many grass carp. It would be nice if the powers-at-b would let us take some of the fish out of the Lake. Probably never happen. When, and we will someday, get grass back in the Lake, I sure hope all that manage this resource will not over react and put way to many grass carp in the Lake. We need a balance of meeting the needs of property owners, fishermen, boaters and the fish that need the vegitation in the Lake to survive. This is a nice as I can state my openion.
Thanks for the posting. My daughter caught one of these off of our dock today and we had seen the post. We released the fish and probably would not have if we hadn’t know what it was. I thought it was just a carp.
This is so true. My husband is a bass fisherman and is real hot about the grass carp. I tell him to get over it!!! I love not having the darn grass. We can now wakeboard in areas where the water is calm and out of the wind and not have to worry about falling in that horrible weed. Whoever posted this was so on target when they said there were usually two very opposing sides. I know it is in our family and I hope my husband reads this. Especially the part about “getting over it”!
I will have to tell you I am surprised more folks aren’t jumping on this little bean. Those carp fish are everywhere. My boys and I fish for catfish and no matter where it is we go, they get on our line. We have always put them back because we didn’t think they were good to eat. My friend from Viet Nam says they are real good to eat and he didn’t know it was against the Law to keep them. Thanks for the info. I guess we need to read the fine print on the license book. Gilbert
My husband and I live on the lake and love to fish. This is the second time in Lake Conroe’s grass carp history that emotions, rather than science, took control. Undo pressure was applied on Texas Parks and Wildlife. The result. An overstocking of grass carp that not only ate the hydrilla but, totally consumed the benificial native vegetation. Now there is an ecological imbalance and a potential disaster in the waiting. It would have been better to release fewer carp. Given a chance they would have done the job. The Aquatic Management Plan, that all parties signed off on, called for 5 fish per infested acre. The final release brought that number to 55. 10 times what The Plan called for! Eventually the carp will die off. Then we hope cooler heads will prevail. It’s amazing that the people with economic interests trumped TP&W. Is it more important to bow to the big money or jeprodize a viable, ecologically balanced lake? There needs to be a balance. Think about it!
Do these fish reproduce in Lake Conroe? From what I was reading, it sounds like the answer is ‘no’ because cheryl says eventually they die off. That’s good I guess. That way even if they did overstock them, there’s a chance that someday it’ll get better.
Apparently there’s a bit of guesswork involved in these decisions along with succumbing to public pressure or lobbying so it went from 5 fish per infested acre to 55. Pretty big difference!
Maybe the experience will yield some useful data in the long run – I hope fishing doesn’t suffer while we wait to see how the experiment turns out!
Bill in Spring
We’ve been seeing herds of Carp feeding in the morning.
We use to be able to throw out maze and catfish pellets
to lure cats in but now we are over run with carp when we do.
We fish from the docks and have many of lines broken with Carp.
Catfishing is still good, but we don’t use pellets any more.
Some have found that feeding the catfish sour deer corn or chicken scratch that can be found at the feed store in Willis seems to hold the fish in the area in and around your boat docks and at the same time does not seem to attract the grass carp in as large of numbers. Might give that a try.
Interesting article on Grass Carp. We just had several residence from Conroe come down to Corpus Christi for a fishing tournament. Keep up the good work.
Sonny is my favorite person on the show, Sonny with a chance is the best! Thanks for your blog, I enjoyed this post!
Sounds like we need a sponsored bowfishing tournament at lake conroe. This would at least thin the grass carp down a little before the lake turns into a big mud hole.
I could not agree more. There have been several attempts on the part of several concerned parties to get approval of a process to harvest some of these fish. No luck so far; but, as the fish continue to grow to 25 to 30 pounds, it may become necessary to do something or we will have a mud hole once again. Last year we had four ShareLunker Bass (13 lbs or larger) caught on Lake Conroe. This year ZERO! HELLO!!! We have also had two great years of crappie fishing with the spawn being able to grow to maturity in the safety of the cover of the grass, This too will change with NO cover for the fingerlings. We have to have a balance, we just have not been able to get it yet! We just have to keep trying! Papa John