Carp Eggs?

[phiendWMD]

I've seen lots of carp in one area I only see them in for like a week during the Spring. They don't seem to be feeding. Mostly they seem to be trying to go up a spillway without much luck. I'm guessing they are breeding. There are also quite a few other fish in the immediate area I'm not used to seeing. So I'm putting 2 and 2 together and it seems the answer is they are eating carp eggs. Of course the last egg fly I had was lost to a tree a week or two ago. I'm going to pick up a few different sizes and colors of eggs tomorrow and see how that works.

 

[sandfly]

An egg-layer, a typical adult female can lay 300,000 eggs in a single spawn.[17] Although carp typically spawn in the spring, in response to rising water temperatures and rainfall, carp can spawn multiple times in a season. In commercial operations, spawning is often stimulated using a process called hypophysation, where lyophilized pituitary extract is injected into the fish. The pituitary extract contains gonadotropic hormones which stimulate gonad maturation and sex steroid production, ultimately promoting reproduction.

Predation[edit]

A single carp can lay over a million eggs in a year,[3] yet their population remains the same, so the eggs and young perish in similarly vast numbers. Eggs and fry often fall victim to bacteria, fungi, and the vast array of tiny predators in the pond environment. Carp which survive to juvenile are preyed upon by other fish such as the northern pike and largemouth bass, and a number of birds (including cormorants, herons, goosanders, and ospreys)[18] and mammals (including otter and mink).

 

[sandfly]

Common Carp Eggs