Asian carp in the Sauk Valley: Monster fish, 
monstrous appetite

THOMSON – Asian carp may be the Rodney Dangerfield of fish: It gets no respect.

Some say that reputation is plenty deserved. Others disagree, noting economic benefits.

In Carroll County, a company processes thousands of pounds of Asian carp daily, much of it from the Illinois River. It sells the fish at its store in Fulton.

Recently, Charlie Sedivy, a commercial fisherman from Savanna, caught a 73-pound bighead Asian carp in a trammel net set in a nearby lake off the Mississippi River.

This “monster fish” is an omen of what natural resources managers have feared for years in the upper Mississippi, said Ed Britton, a Thomson-based manager with the National Wildlife Refuge System.

What’s wrong with silver and bighead Asian carp? They are Asian species, not native to the United States.

“Physically, they are better adapted to live in the Mississippi River than our native fish due to large size, massive body weight, high reproductive potential and voracious appetite,” Britton said in a news release.

They arrived in the Illinois River 20 years ago, and now make up about 95 percent of the fish in some areas of that river, Britton said.

Thirty years ago, commercial catfish farmers in Arkansas introduced Asian carp to remove algae from their ponds. Not long after, floodwaters washed the fish into the tributaries of the lower Mississippi.

In the Great Flood of 1993, the fish expanded into the middle Mississippi and Missouri rivers. Floods in 1997 and 2001 allowed the fish to get past locks and dams to get near Lake Michigan by 2002.

The first report of Asian carp in the Mississippi River along Whiteside and Carroll counties was in 2005. They have been reported as far north as Canada.

Many fear the advance of Asian carp threatens the multibillion-dollar fishing industry on the Great Lakes. Electric barriers in the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal are designed to keep Asian carp and other fish from passing into the Great Lakes.

Schafer Fisheries in Thomson, founded in 1955, is in the business of selling Asian carp, primarily to ethnic communities in the United States and around the world.

Last year, the company processed 30 million pounds of carp species and expects that amount to shoot up to 50 million this year, owner Mike Schafer said.

Companywide, Schafer employs about 100 people, not including the fishermen, who are independent contractors. The company hopes to get a $3.4 million state grant to expand so that it can hire 40 more, he said.

“Everyone has to remember one thing: Life is about change,” Schafer said. “Whatever these government agencies do, these fish will survive. Everything seeks its own level.”

Schafer said his company is in the business of feeding people.

“I think it [carp] needs to be exploited,” he said. “Fishing is the only thing that will control this population of fish.”

Schafer and government officials agree that silver carp can be dangerous. That’s because they leap out of the water, sometimes in unison, Britton said. They can jump 10 feet high and 20 feet horizontally, he added.

Asian carp have knocked some people unconscious, Britton said. Other people have suffered broken bones, cuts and concussions as a result.

Sedivy, the fisherman who caught the 73-pounder, once got a broken tooth when a flying silver carp hit his mouth, Schafer said.

“The Illinois River is very dangerous for water skiers and Jet Skiers, even people in boats,” Schafer said.

The Illinois River, he said, is the perfect environment for Asian carp, with the right nutrients and current.

“We don’t have those nutrient levels on the Mississippi,” he said.

Are there Asian carp in the Rock River?

About 20 have been caught by commercial fishermen downstream from Sterling over the past 3 years, said Dan Sallee, a Sterling-based fisheries biologist with the state Department of Natural Resources.

No others have been caught upstream from Sterling, with the exception of a couple in the Rockford area, he said.

“We’ve seen zero reproduction [on the Rock River],” he said. “These are damaging fish, and we don’t want to see them in our ecosystem.”

Sallee spends plenty of time on rivers, so he knows how dangerous silver carp can be. He’s been struck by the fish on the Illinois and its tributaries.

“I’ve been hit in the back, the head and the shoulder,” he reported. “I got hit in the hands this week.”

Schafer said Asian carp are tasty, but they’re bony.

“We’re spoiled Americans,” he said. “No one wants to eat fish with bones anymore.”