GF&P Needs You to Eat More Carp

The Madville Times reported Wednesday on the commercial fishermen from Lake Norden plying Lake Herman's waters for the wily carp. We wondered aloud just how much the state makes on the deal. Turns out not a penny: Game Fish & Parks replied quite promptly to an e-mail inquiry (you know, GF&P is two-for-two in replying within 24 hours to requests for information, not to mention derring-do on Lake Madison -- GF&P appears to be one agency we're getting our money's worth from) with information on their commercial fish regulations. GF&P says that commercial fishermen (no word on women employed in this profession) pay the following per-pound rates for the fish they take from our lakes:

• Buffalo: 2 cents
• Freshwater drum: 1/4 cent
• Bullhead: 1 cent
• White bass: 4 cents
• Carp: 0 cents. Says GF&P: "We don't charge for carp due to depressed markets and the high costs involved with seining operations."

Sounds like the bottom is dropping out of the fish market, or at least the carp market. One would think healthy eaters would be shifting from the much maligned red meat to all the other white meats, including fish. Carp is the most harvested fish in the world, with all five species (silver, grass, common, bighead, and crucian) all topping Nile tilapia and Atlantic salmon (who knew?) , but in the US, we just don't eat the carp (shrimp are the most eaten aquatic species in the US). And what fish we do eat doesn't come close to the amounts of other meat in our diet. In 2002 (the most recent year for which these charts offer comparable data), each American ate an average of 15.6 pounds of fish, 51.5 pounds of hot dogs, 67.6 pounds of beef, and 80.5 pounds of chicken.

Our friends from Lake Norden may be able to find a niche for their product in Manhattan, but, as GF&P puts it, we need some other markets to open up if the dwindling number of commercial fishermen in South Dakota are to stay in business. Guess it's time to start asking for carp patties at Hy-Vee...

Oh! and after all this good press, the fish guys still park their backhoe on the state grassland. What did I say about driving on the grass, kids?