Can anyone tell me if ALL the carp in Silver Lake (Cowlitz county) are grass carp and, as such, are protected from fishing?

Hi,

There are some common carp in addition to the grass carp. The grass carp are protected so make sure if you catch those, you release them.

stace

I know, I should have asked this the first time around but whats the easiest way to tell a grass carp from a common carp?

WDFW has something that distinguishes the two carps from eachother...Check their website

"Slats" the greass carp can be separated by looking for the scales, they do not have any scales and the common ones have large scales and much brighter in color. I do a lot of bow hunting for them and once you see them in the water and see both you will notice very quickly the differance good luck

ok ok... bowhunting looks like a blast! Where do you bowhunt for carp??

Well, first my computer went belly up, then i forgot my password, then we moved so it has been quite a struggle here.

But thanks a lot for the info about grass vs common carp. I hear it is hard to get carp to bite but when you hook one it can be quite a fight what with the big fish and all. I'll be the one in the lily pads.

-O-------........................O<
Slats

Grass carp have scales.

You can differentiate between the common carp by look at the mouth and the barbels. Grass carp do not have a sucker mouth - more like a trout mouth and they do not have barbels on their mouth. Barbels resemble whiskers.

Grass carp are silvery and commons are generally a brown to yellow color.

stace

Don't know about specifics in your area but The sloughs on the CR around Longview are full of good size carp. Most of the warmer low elevation lakes in the state have carp and there are even some tournaments in E. WA. Probably safest to avoid lakes with grass carp as I've heard of tickets being issued on Silver Lake because the "lake has insufficient visibility to identify the target" However the source of this I don't always trust so take it with a grain of salt.

See lake report for Silver Lake for a photo of the carp I caught recently. Had barbels, so I think that means its a common carp.

Check out the article under Tacklebox Tales for how to ID common carp and leather carp. Also, check out the fishing technique discribed in the article.