Carp make the waterways muddy

[DocPhil]

One of the biggest myths out there.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-UQjO4cWvbc

 

[kaboem]

awesome video.

 

[Boss Wit NOS]

nice find Doc

 

[specimen fanatic]

 

[megafish]

Very nice video

But carp if left unchecked will erode and cause silt build up in waterways and increase in mud

 

[alex isaacs]

A very informative video, nice pick from the archives docphil

 

[DocPhil]

megafish wrote:

Very nice video

But carp if left unchecked will erode and cause silt build up in waterways and increase in mud

So why are so many lakes (over here in Australia anyway) nice & clear and packed with large carp? Most of them have very muddy silty bottoms, yet the carp does not affect the turbidity at all..

 

[megafish]

My guess would be they get enough food or they are kept in check

Or they have already done to,the bottom what they want to, to make it suitable for them

http://www.dpi.nsw.gov.au/fisheries/pests-diseases/freshwater-pests/species/carp/general-information

 

[DocPhil]

I know about that 'research' you posted, they confined carp to a stretch of river by placing a net across at both ends, the carp were starving and of course they dug around the mud to look for food, not valid at all as it does not reflect a natural situation. In reality there are very few places where turbidity is affected by them, due to availability of food and natural filters such as reeds and other vegetation. Carp have no predators here and in some places are in plague proportions yet the water remains clear. The truth is that poor water quality and turbidity results from altered waterways and pollution, also runoff from erosion. Carp are an easy scapegoat, the reality is much harder to swallow.
A lady I work with was complaining about carp in the Murray river and how they destroyed the Murray cod, she went on to tell stories of how her dad used to catch dozens of 40pound cod to sell at a market. Thats a duh moment right there. Now that size and bag limits have been imposed on murray cod they are making a comeback, in spite of the fact that the carp are still everpresent. In fact small carp are now an excellent food supply for them

 

[Dr halibut hoffman]

Yeah I do not think that one video of carp in clear water proves that carp do not silt up a water body, the water there is deep and the bottom sandy..I've seen it too many times, take 3 clear dams, add just one or 2 carp into one of them and soon you will have 2 clear dams and one murky one. Occasionally they might not do it but that probably has more to do with the local environmental factors. Not silting up a perfect environment and silting up any other environment means that in general they create silting of the water, not the opposite. I've seen a few individual waters in my life that do not silt up ( Germiston lake, Sandvlei CPT, princess vlei etc) and contain carp but the majority do. A local very large dam has dried up somewhat, it has very healthy fish populations and lots of food. When one goes to the top where the dam is now in the old river channels and looks at the ox bow "ponds" that have been left, one can clearly see which ones trapped a few carp in them and which ones didn't trap a single carp. Some are gin clear and others look like roodeplaat, but they have the same water, same food resources, same gravel/silt/stone/clay bottom, right next to each other and like night and day one is pea green and brown muddy and some are clear all the way to the bottom. I cannot see one carp in the clear ones, just bass, barbel, kurper etc but in the muddy ones there are clearly carp jumping and rolling about.

That said the biggest threat these waters are not carp in the least, but as you said, pollution, water extraction, fertilizer run-off and silt from erosion are the biggest culprits.

Cool video that you found though, I find it interesting that the carp seemed to prefer the sweetcorn to the seed and boilies placed down.. Koo all the way..