MO Dept. of Conservation works with local fishermen to tackle invasive carp

Silver Carp is an invasive species found in the Missouri River and its tributaries, including the Platte River, where a group of local fishermen found a new way to combat the invasion.

Silver Carp are unlike most freshwater fish; they jump 10 feet in the air as a defense mechanism, often hitting fishermen or flying into boats.

That's how fisherman Greg Trial said he accidentally found a way to catch them.

"When the fire department had to rescue us about a year ago out of the river, as they latched their boat to ours, their boat filled with fish and we realized, 'Wow, we just should make our boat bigger,"' Trial said. "And so, we’ve added these wing-nets on and we’re able to catch them now, without a problem with bycatch.”

A bycatch is a fish caught unintentionally while fishing for specific species or sizes of wildlife.

John Batten/KSHB

The design is working for Trial and his team, too.

"We go out, we could spend an hour just doing testing and pull in 500 pounds without even batting an eye," Trial said.

Kasey Whiteman, Missouri River and biometrics unit supervisor for the Missouri Department of Conservation, said one Silver Carp can lay millions of eggs.

"Because they have no natural predators in the system, you know, it makes it very difficult that they can outcompete some of our native species," Whiteman said.

Whiteman said Trial's design minimizes the harvest of Missouri's native species, which interested the department.

"With the high densities of carp in here, we thought it was a good opportunity to have them do a test run this summer and into the fall," Whiteman said.

For Trial, he said it's in his blood as a fisherman who was raised on the river to care about his environment. He, along with his team, want to harvest the fish responsibly.

Greg Trial

"Catching them is one thing, but what do you do with them?" he said.

Trial and his team have turned the carp skin into leather, the waste water from cleaning the fish into fertilizer and the fillets into bait, which is being sold in three Kansas City-area bait shops.

"There's a bone in the dorsal fin that is almost a direct replacement for ivory," he said. "We found out we can make beads out of those."

If you happen to catch a Silver Carp, the Missouri Department of Conservation advises you to not throw it back, but either eat it, use it as bait or as fertilizer for your garden.

KSHB 41 reporter Lily O’Shea Becker covers Franklin and Douglas counties in Kansas. Share your story idea with Lily .

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