A participant in the Redneck Carp Tournament takes a swing at Asian carp in the Illinois River. The carp are spooked by the sound of motors and have a nasty habit of leaping from the water like missiles and colliding with boaters with bone-breaking force. The carp were imported from Asia to cleanse fish ponds and sewage lagoons in the Deep South but escaped into the Mississippi and have been working their way north since the 1970s. The prospect of a carp invasion alarms environmentalists and people whose livelihoods depend on a strong fishing and tourism economy. Asian carp, which can reach 4 feet long and weigh up to 100 pounds can wreak havoc not by attacking native fish, but starving them out by gobbling up plankton.Asian carp soon may finish the job kudzu began years ago.
The invasive fish are coming in waves to Tennessee, and they are taking over the state’s waters, much like the reviled “vine that ate the South” has taken over landscapes.
Bill Dance, host of NBC Sports’ “Bill Dance Outdoors,” is a Tennessee native and has made a life fishing the Volunteer State. Areas he fished as a kid are totally overrun by the “nasty fish,” he said, and there are places where the carp gather in the hundreds and feed on plankton and phytoplankton.
“They have occupied so much available water space,” the Memphis area resident said.
Traditional Tennessee lake and river fish are disappearing at his longtime fishing spots. White bass, crappie, bluegill and shad – they’re all disappearing, he said.