Lake Wingra Project: Carp seining aims to improve water quality, angling

From the Capital Times

...Carp are considered the main reason for turbidity, or water cloudiness, in Lake Wingra, because their eating habits stir up sediments on the bottom of the lake, cutting off sunlight to desired lake plants needed to stabilize the lake bottom as well as suspending nutrients that fuel algae blooms.

...Radio tracking over the past two years showed carp congregated in the deep central basin of the lake in winter. Tuesday, carp were extracted by pulling long seine nets under the ice, then taking the nets out of the water through holes cut in the ice.

Game fish, including muskie, were quickly returned to the cold water, while the carp were kept captive in the nets under the ice until the nets were pulled.

Commercial fisher Steve Kallenbach of Stoddard, Wis., and his crew will try today to gather more carp, attempting to determine if the numbers of fish make future carp nettings commercially viable.