Commercial netting

A somewhat disturbing story for channel cat lovers…

The commercial carp and buffalo netters are at it again on some of the metro lakes. (For those who haven’t seen this operation, holes are cut in the ice so that big nets can be dragged through. By the time the net is pulled up near shore its got hundreds of fish in it. As workers harvest the desirable fish, game and other unwanted fish are tossed in ‘discard’ holes next to the main netting hole.)

I was checking this out and found two really nice channel cats in the discard holes. They were floaters, belly up. I picked up the first one and placed her on the ice. She gave a kick and croaked so I put her back, although she wasn’t able to swim down.

The second channel had less life, probably just about dead. I tried to revive it but who knows if it made it. When I came back at dusk both were gone (not floating) so I’m not sure if they swam away or sank to the bottom. They were both played out from being netted and struggling.

Anyway, both these fish were trophy-size channels for the metro lakes. I figure they were both upper 20 inch fish, pushing 30″. (My boot is 14″ long for reference.) Pretty impressive for a lake not known for its channel cats! If you’re wondering what lake it is, only Angler X knows. And he aint talking!

How many carp did you see them take out…10, 100, truck loads? Just wondering? I might be wrong, but I think the DNR is aware of the game fish that may possibly become “collateral damage”, and that is taken into account when the netting permits are issued. I’m sure there’s a ratio of how many game fish can be killed compared to the amount of rough fish, but who knows for sure?

I’d say somewhere between 100 and truckloads. Leaning more towards the truckloads side.

I was thinking they probably dropped a few fish on their heads. I probably drop one in three. When I saw people netting last year, I thought I needed to fish for carp a bit more.

Neat photos. Well of the carp netting anyways. Thanks.

Here is a picture of can happen from netting carp when things go bad. This was on a lake in wisconsin a couple of years ago. Those are walleyes in the boat.

Here are a couple of more pics. This has happened on 2 different lakes in Wisconsin lately that we know of.

Can you explain the last pic? Is that all washed up on a beach? Were these guys busted?

Yes, those are some sickening pics of the walleyes.

I was invited along with a few DNR fisheries people that were going to net and sample a lake I fish alot. I was overjoyed that I was invited to go along and I did.

I watched the Fisheries workers pull nets from different parts of the lake for different specie and it made me sick.

I really did not like seeing all the dead trophy fish and asked them how they could look at that day after day.

One said they have an important job to do to keep watch over the population of fish in the lake for stocking and for rough fish control. I agree it is of great importance.

I guess knowing that what ones is doing benifits the specie makes it easier to see all the others that die.

Long story short, be it netting roughfish or netting gamefish for survey’s, many of our precious gamefish will die and for those like me who agree with their methods, it’s still sickening to see all thoise fish die.

We can look at a boat full of precious eyes dead and say what a waste but those few fish are a very small percentage compared to what the DNR does to make sure our lakes are better for it.

That picture is a small area of the shorline where over 2000 walleyes were figured dead from carp netting. Lots of other fish were dead as well. The guy went to court for penalties.

what happens to all the carp and buffalo? where are these fish sold and who actually eats this stuff?