AOTY 2017: New Species Suggestions

The direction of the "drop greenling" thread motivates me to start a new thread on new species folks would like to see added to AOTY 2017.  The current species list includes 8 freshwater, 8 saltwater, and 4 anadromous.  If we add species, we'd like to keep the ratio between fresh and salt species intact as it kinda levels the playing field among coastal and inland participants.  That means if we add one saltwater species, we want to compliment it with a freshwater species.

Some suggestions from both the AOTY Comittee and the NCKA community so far include flatfish (flounder, sole, sand dabs), vermillion rockfish, and carp.

What two species (fresh and salt) would you like to see added for the 2017 edition of Angler of the Year?

My suggestion would be landlocked kings/coho over carp.  F carp.

Just cause you don't know how to catch um Ben don't hate!

My vote overall would be to leave greenling alone. Just because they are normally a "by-catch" doesn't mean if you are serious you cant learn to target them.... Just like the species suggested for adding to AOTY list! 
Maybe if you want to try and add a new twist... Put flatfish (sanddabs/Flounder) back on the list for the saltwater side and for freshwater add carp!
My reasons for adding carp are.... besides sturgeon it is the most difficult species to target that Ive encountered... they put up a hellava fight on light tackle... they are accessible to almost all living in the NCKA "zone".... does any body eat the AOTY bass they catch? Don't hate um cause they're not the most palatable fish swimming in freshwater. I don't really eat any freshwater fish I catch besides trout! even then Im picky about which body of water they came from.

To make things really interesting...... Carp are one of the only species I know of that you can shoot with bow and arrow. Its a legal method of take... so if they added and I shoot off my kayak is bow and arrow accepted? May as well get all the ?'s out now

My suggestion would be landlocked kings/coho over carp.  F carp.

The problem with LL kings is there are only a few lakes that have them, and even those lakes are likely to have very few of them over the next few years.  Vast majority of those stocks  consist of surplus fish from the hatcheries, and the runs these last couple years haven't provided many surplus fish.  Coho are no longer stocked in Oroville, or anywhere else in the state.

Brainstorming: separate crappie from the other panfish?  Or we could try separating spotted bass and smallmouth bass again, but only accept smallies from lakes and streams that aren't known to include spots.

Brainstorming: separate crappie from the other panfish?

This makes good sense to me.

I don't like carp because I think of them as the second most destructive non native fish in California. If people promise to kill them for AOTY then maybe.

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I don't like carp because I think of them as the second most destructive non native fish in California. If people promise to kill them for AOTY then maybe.

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Destructive like Smolt and fry eating, no. Egg eating in some environments, Yes.  Habitat degradation in man-made environments, perhaps. Ever glorified by AOTY, no.  Great underrated game fish. Yes

But I'd like to hear what professional fisheries guys think about the being so destructive.

And I do think catching them from the kayak is tough, so that makes them fair game for AOTY in my book

I don't like carp because I think of them as the second most destructive non native fish in California. If people promise to kill them for AOTY then maybe.

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[/Ingredients

2 tablespoons olive oil
2 cups (loosely packed) roughly chopped onion
1.5 cups chopped Hungarian and Fresno pepper (about 2 of each)
6 cloves garlic smashed
2 cups crushed tomato with their juices
1 cup white wine
1 quart fish stock
1 tablespoon sweet paprika*
1 tablespoon hot paprika*
Pinch or two smoked paprika (optional)
Handful of greens (I used watercress but whatever you like would work - optional)
2 potatoes cubed
1 lb CARP
Salt and pepper to taste
Fresh parsley for garnish
Carp roe optional

Carp are extremely resilient.  They can flourish in heavily disturbed and polluted systems.  Turns out we have quite a few of those types of systems in CA, so it’s not hard to find a carp water in most parts of the state.  Their feeding habits often include the uprooting of aquatic plants as they sift for aquatic inverts and yummy plant material.  The uprooting of plants can result in loss of habitat for juveniles of other species, and in some cases increase water turbidity.  In that respect, yes, they could be considered destructive.

But we already have a plethora of species on AOTY that could also be considered “destructive”.  Take largemouth bass: look at what they’ve done to all the native species in Clear Lake.  Same can be said of non-native panfish (a big player in extirpation of the Sacramento perch from its native range) and hatchery-raised salmon (competition for resources and genetic dilution of wild stocks).  Not to mention those non-native predatory fishes of the “striped” variety eating everything they see.

With all that being said, I wouldn’t consider carp to have as much of an impact on our aquatic resources as many of the aforementioned species.  And I agree with others on their viability as an AOTY fish.  Their wariness, unique diet, and widespread availability are all solid AOTY-worthy attributes.  Not to mention they can get huge.  Guys will need the magnum-sized Hawg Troughs for those 30 pounders!

On the flip side, I could understand the disgust one may have if their chrome-bright, 30 pound Chinook salmon is considered equivalent in points to a big ole carp.  But one could say the same thing about a monster heavy-metal-laden channel catfish, which for some reason are more highly regarded than carp.

Sac Perch 

Sac Perch 

If they were more abundant, then I'd fully support it.  But I think we could count all the NorCal lakes with fishable populations of Sac perch on one hand.  Distribution and abundance are just too limited.

Sac Perch 

    

On the flip side, I could understand the disgust one may have if their chrome-bright, 30 pound Chinook salmon is considered equivalent in points to a big ole carp.  But one could say the same thing about a monster heavy-metal-laden channel catfish, which for some reason are more highly regarded than carp.

How dare a carp potentially score as many points as the current 2016 AOTY big Salmon. 

Another option I mentioned earlier would be to separate crappie from the other panfish.  The current panfish category might as well be re-named "crappie", because with the exception of a couple Sac perch entries, the largest non-crappie panfish entry in AOTY history clocks in at 144 points.  Bluegill, redear, pumpkinseed, and green sunfish have a relatively wide distribution.  And while catching numbers of small bluegill can be relatively easy, catching a "bull" bluegill can actually be quite a challenge.

Thoughts?

Another option I mentioned earlier would be to separate crappie from the other panfish.  The current panfish category might as well be re-named "crappie", because with the exception of a couple Sac perch entries, the largest non-crappie panfish entry in AOTY history clocks in at 144 points.  Bluegill, redear, pumpkinseed, and green sunfish have a relatively wide distribution.  And while catching numbers of small bluegill can be relatively easy, catching a "bull" bluegill can actually be quite a challenge.

Thoughts?

I like it but if we add any fresh fish, lets also add a salt fish