8 February 2009

Carp murder for money and prizes!

| johnboy
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Here’s something a bit different that has drifted across my desk.

Next Sunday is the second annual Monster Carpathon.

Between 7am and 3.45 you’re encouraged to murder as many carp and redfin as you can for money and fun. Entries at the Acton Boat Hire.

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Granny said :

How did they get in there in the first place?

Geez, Granny do I have to explain everything! When a male carp meets a female carp, they make beautiful love underneath Commonwealth Bridge – and whammo, a few weeks later there are lots of little carp……

You can actually eat carp – however you neet to flush them out first. Me and my brother did it via our bathtub when we caught a decent sized one about 25 years ago. Mum wasn’t happy about losing access to the tub for a few days but the amount of mud that cam out of him was amazing!

He was then despatched to the frying pan and tasted pretty good – however they are really a bony fish so not too easy to eat.

I understand the chinese Embassy has tanks where they put ther caught carp into for flushing…

On the Carpathon – Bryan Pratt recently recommended berleying up a spot during this week – using corn or even tinned cat food. I’m not sure how legal that is – basically littering in the lake to catch fish?

Either way me and my boys are looking forward to the challenge. Prizes of $2500 for adults and $1000 gift vouchers for kids is well worth the effort.

I was wondering how that would sound. ‘Boom’ and ‘blam’ didn’t seem entirely appropriate so I was kind of leaning towards ‘blup’ or ‘blug’ or ‘blat’. But ‘thump’ is much better … I can really picture this thump!

: )

I love setting off explosives underwater, you get the flash, then the *thump* then the surge of water and bubbles to the surface.

Well, it says, ‘Maximum of ten fish per entry card,’ but it doesn’t say how you can get ’em. So it sounds like almost anything goes!

I guess you have to pick the ten biggest suckers and get rid of the rest. But don’t take my word for it. Me and fishing are not ‘like that’ …. *crossed fingers*

The explosives could be interesting, though!

Reminds me of Lawson’s ‘Loaded Dog’ …. *guffaw*

…empty corn cans…

Is this a serious problem by the lake?

Are you allowed to use a drift net in the competition?

finder said :

I guess you will be going into bat for the canetoad next and lets not forget the murder of all those cute little bunnies.

On the other hand, maybe you’ll realise when something’s a joke.

Funny thing is how other cultures adore them. My mate in the UK loves them and when he catches them he calls them lovely girls and other affectionate names before he gently releases them back into the wild. And he hates when I tell him what we tend to do with them in Aussie.

I bet the CSIRO had some way of reducing the carp population Australia wide by means of infection with a sterility inducing disease, or maybe just carp AIDS, but research was dropped through one of the massive funding cuts.

Just to clear up a few misconceptions….. The reason we have such a carp problem is because we have made our waterways ideal carp territory. Lay the blame squarely where it belongs, with the Snowy mountains dams (full of spotty carp) Burrinjuck, scrivener, Blowering, Googong, our urban lakes and all the other flow barriers etc etc that have created the loss of habitat, siltation and low flow problems.
We have designed our waterways as carp habitat, so don’t be surprised they make up the bulk of the biomass.

Knocking a few LBG carp on the head is laughable, given that we have carp breedatoriums (e.g. the Molonglo and Jerra wetlands) directly upstream of the Lake. The Jerra wetlands silt trap is where the carp spawn and grow before moving into the lake. The ‘kill a carp/redfin, save the natives’ mantra is pretty pathetic. It won’t fix the problem. Carp are effectively protected by law in the ACT. (Upper Molonglo river is classed a ‘trout’ water, and the Angle Crossing carp protection (oops I meant trout cod/macca’s) zone. Ignore the fact that Macca’s cannot survive in any water with redfin/EHN in it.

Returning a carp to the water alive is not illegal in NSW or the ACT. Kill them, chuck them back, makes no difference, just don’t leave your dead carp, empty corn cans, empty VB bottles and other crap behind for everyone else to enjoy.

Trout and redfin are far more damaging to native fish than carp.

Someone told me once that LBG used to be clear before the Carp took over and started stirring up sediment

Ant – fishing isn’t always fish-killing – sometimes just fish maiming, but in this case it is carp-genocide, and I’m all for it.

With continued pressure on the Carp and with releases of large numbers of native fish into places like LBG, our natives might have a chance of at least maintaining a presence.

ant said :

Killing fish is killing fish, whether they’re special native fish or nasty unwanted carp fish. Fishing is a nice euphemism, but what it’s really is Fish-Killing.

Call it what you like, they still taste good when cooked fairly soon after being killed. Same with sheep, chicken, cows etc..

justin heywood3:34 pm 08 Feb 09

Granny said :

“But it does sound to me like this is one of those ‘this means war’ sorts of things, though.”

Yeah, but the war is lost. There is hardly a farm dam, creek or river in the MDB which isn’t overun with carp.

They are considered good eating in some cultures, but in Australia they usually taste a bit ‘muddy’ (and not mud-cake muddy!).

They are variously claimed as a symptom or cause of turbidity in our rivers and dams. Either way, like foxes, rabbits, wild goats and pigs, a few less won’t hurt.

I don’t like killing anything – even mice and spiders and *gulp* ants … which I never ever ever ever do by the way! 😉 – but sometimes it’s war!

I am a pretty useless city type girl who would swoon if a chook got the chop and ruins perfectly good fishing expeditions by deliberately scaring the fish away … er, sea kittens!

But it does sound to me like this is one of those ‘this means war’ sorts of things, though.

Killing fish is killing fish, whether they’re special native fish or nasty unwanted carp fish. Fishing is a nice euphemism, but what it’s really is Fish-Killing.

‘They have small eyes, thick lips, a forked tail and a single dorsal (top) fin with strongly serrated spines.’

I’m still deciding whether to make my ‘I’ve had boyfriends like that’ comment ….

; )

It does sound like a serious problem, but surely if events such as the Monster Carpathon are the last best hope for ‘our natural aquatic ecosystems’ they are pretty much doomed to rack, ruin and total annihilation?

Good for the Lake Burley Griffin Boat Hire people I should think, slightly better than doing nothing for the lake perhaps, and very likely a fun day of family fishing for many.

Hopefully the ‘sea-kittens’ will be despatched with minimal suffering, and there will be proper facilities and procedures in place for the disposal of the carcasses.

Granny said :

How did they get in there in the first place?

They were introduced, like the rabbit, back in the 1800’s as ornamental fish – they’re basically just big gold fish. Some escaped from farms etc. and have bred like crazy through most rivers and streams in Australia.

It is illegal to throw them back into the water.

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

As long as they aren’t left beside the lake to rot (and stink) like some idiot has done beside Lake Tuggeranong near the community centre for the past few Sundays

How did they get in there in the first place?

I’m with Finder, I’m not entirely sure how pulling a few more pests out of the local lakes can be made to sound as if it is a bad thing?

Righto do the rules explicitly state your not allowed to use explosives to kill the carp?

Cool! Do we get to paint one side of our catch grey and nail them to trees?

I guess you will be going into bat for the canetoad next and lets not forget the murder of all those cute little bunnies.

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