Boatnerd Discussion Forum

The Goldfish are quite hardy and easily survive in the lakes. Sounds like you Lake Erie guys need more Pike or some Musky's. Up here they don't usually last very long do to predators, might explain why we have been catching bigger than normal Pike. Just as an example I caught an 48in. Pike and a 54in. Musky this year in a small river that has a Goldfish population.

Goldfish carp are not new to L. Erie. In January 1972, buddy and I were on the ice about 1/2 way from Pt. Mouille to Detroit R. Lt and came across a perfectly clear area of ice. Could see a large school of 18 inch goldfish...just like the gardens in Tokyo.

Theres' been a breeding population of domesticated gold fish that got into the lake years ago. They're just a fancy looking carp anyway & they're real hearty so they just adapt to just about anything. They've been caught in the Buffalo/Niagara River area before. Google it, theres' pics of them being caught out there.

In Minnesota, they shut down a lock in downtown Minneapolis to stem this fish from making further in roads into the Land Of Ten Thousand Lakes.

I found the following link online, as well as a couple of other ones.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/speaking-of-science/wp/2016/01/05/invasive-asian-carp-could-overtake-lake-erie-study-finds/

Sounds like the carp are already in Lake Erie, just maybe not in sufficient numbers to breed. That could change of course, once they are there.

The big worry to the lakes was the Chicago Shipping Canal, but it looks like Lake Erie is a bigger worry, and that lake is connected to Lakes Huron and Michigan by Lake Saint Clair. While this could set up a new fishing industry, I would hesitate to forecast what the long term effects could be.

It does look like people were looking in the wrong direction for the threat.