With video: All carp jump? Nope, only silver, and only sometimes
Much of the misgivings about Asian carp is driven by videos of flying silver carp.
In fact, those carp don't upswing all the time in every place they live. The silver carp are the only ones that jump, and they usually do it only in narrow channels where they are densely filled. It's the vibration of the boats' motors that makes them jump.
"I was at that same spot a hundred times before and never saw that," said Brendan Kearns of Terre Haute, Ind., whose frantic laughing heard on a video as silver carp flew made him a YouTube star last year. "I've tried to go back and get them to do it again and haven't been accomplished to do it."
Kearns shot the video in August, when waters were low and the fish concentrated in narrow channels in the Wabash River. He suspects some other video-makers have used electrifying prods to trigger the leaping fish.
In boat trips on the Mississippi and Illinois rivers in May, during floods, the Out Press saw very few leaping carp, since they were able to spread out and flee from the boats' motors.
