May 15th, 2023
These aren’t small fish; some are quite large, well over a foot in length. The day before, an area resident showed me a video of many flopping in the water so much that they described it as sounding like a “waterfall.”
We showed the photos of the fish we saw to Darrell Crabbe, Executive Director of the Saskatchewan Wildlife Federation. He identified them as Common Carp, an invasive species of fish that has been in the system for decades. “As far as mortality, it is certainly not a concern. The first question that would be asked is are there any native species that are being affected in the same way. The pictures don’t show that they are. I would tell you that historically this happens quite regularly.”
Crabbe said no work is being done to curb the number of the problem fish. He said that the Sask Wildlife Federation operates the provincial spawn camps. A spawn camp is a fish capture system used to augment the population. “Especially in the Qu’Appelle lake systems, they are so numerous that sometimes we can’t even operate.” He said they had to stop capturing fish in Echo Lake because they got 90% carp and 10% sports fish.
Crabbe said that people who enjoy fishing like fishing carp because of their fight. “They are a very aggressive fighting fish and people do enjoy fishing for them…it’s become some what of a catch 22. They have become entrenched with some anglers…but on the other hand they are an invasive species.”
He said that the fish are in a post-spawn season which may be why we can see so many of them as they linger, travelling in big schools close to the surface.
The fishing season kicked off on May 5th.
