Carp Classic coming May 18
JOEL MARTIN | Hagadone News Network | UPDATED 2 years, 5 months AGO
Carp shooter Kyle Lundeen unloads carp he and his teammates shot at last year’s Moses Lake Carp Classic. This year’s tournament is May 18.
FILE PHOTO
A carp shooting team returns to the boat launch at Connelly Park to weigh their catch at last year’s Moses Lake Carp Classic.
Moses Lake Carp Classic organizer Ty Swartout stands on the bow of his bass fishing boat and prepares to shoot carp as the boat drifts along the shore of Moses Lake at last year’s tournament. This year’s Carp Classic is May 18.
Joel Martin has been with the Columbia Basin Herald for more than 25 years in a variety of roles and is the most-tenured employee in the building. Martin is a married father of eight and enjoys spending time with his children and his wife, Christina. He is passionate about the paper’s mission of informing the people of the Columbia Basin because he knows it is important to record the history of the communities the publication serves. | May 8, 2024 1:30 AM
MOSES LAKE — Bowfishers in the Basin will get a chance to show their skills and help clean up the lake at the Moses Lake Carp Classic on May 18.
This is the fifth year the tournament has been held at Moses Lake, organizer Ty Swartout said. The purpose is both to remove an invasive species from the water and to educate the public about the damage carp do in the lake by furthering the spread of blue-green algae, he said. Blue-green algae can be dangerous to humans, and parts of the lake are periodically closed to swimming and boating because of it.
“Fish and Wildlife say there might be like, between 400,000 and 500,000 carp in Moses Lake,” Swartout said. “Last year, our big fish was 27 pounds. So if you’ve got 200,000 20-plus-pounders in there, that's a lot of mass of fish.”
The carp feed the green algae with their excrement, Swartout said, and when they feed or spawn, they stir up sediment, which dredges up phosphorus that feeds the algae. They also give off phosphorus when they die.
“Because they spawn in shallow waters at roughly the same time with your largemouth bass and your smallmouth bass and your bluegill and your crappie, and all those things, they can really hinder the spawn of our game fish,” Swartout said. “They can cover up eggs with mud; they can disperse the eggs out. So it is a battle.”
The cost to enter is $60 per shooter, Swartout said. Registration will begin at 6 a.m. at Connelly Park, and the boats blast off at 7 a.m., according to the tournament rules. Teams can consist of as many shooters as the boat can safely hold. Shooters will have until 5 p.m. to shoot as many and as large carp as they can. The entry fees will be paid out to the top 30% of teams, or the top 10 if if there are more than 30 teams. (There were 21 teams last year.) In addition, the biggest fish will be worth a $1,300 prize. There’s another prize for the most fish of any size shot, he said.
There are also some koi in the lake, left over from people who toss them out of goldfish bowls. They can grow to be four or five pounds, Swartout said, and they’re very harmful to the lake. There’s a $300 prize for those.
“We’ve only had two shots in five years,” Swartout said. “So it's not something that happens all the time, but it is an opportunity. It's kind of like that golden ticket.”
Last year there were 24 boats and about 75 shooters, Swartout said.
Everybody is invited to come watch the weigh-in, Swartout said, and get an idea of how extensive the carp problem really is. After the weigh-in will be a raffle, with prizes donated by local businesses.
“The community's been awesome,” he said. “And that's why I'm doing it. I just want this community to not have to go through a situation where they're going to shut this lake down to swimming and stuff in August and September.”
Joel Martin may be reached via email at [email protected].
An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect date for the Carp Classic. It has been corrected above.
A carp shooting team returns to the boat launch at Connelly Park to weigh their catch at last year’s Moses Lake Carp Classic.
Moses Lake Carp Classic organizer Ty Swartout stands on the bow of his bass fishing boat and prepares to shoot carp as the boat drifts along the shore of Moses Lake at last year’s tournament. This year’s Carp Classic is May 18.ARTICLES BY JOEL MARTIN
Endless battle
Noxious Weed Control Board works to keep invasive plants under control
MOSES LAKE — Some of the nastiest plants in Grant County were the topic of a class led by Jay Johnson, a consultant with the Grant County Noxious Weed Control Board, Tuesday. The Noxious Weed Control Board, as its name would suggest, is tasked with keeping weeds under control in Grant County. That’s not a small job; the board’s website lists 129 species of noxious weeds that are found around Grant County. A noxious weed is defined as an invasive, non-native plant that threatens agricultural crops, local ecosystems or fish and wildlife habitat, according to the Noxious Weed Control Board. Washington state law requires that these weeds be identified and their spread kept to a minimum, if not completely eradicated. “We’re one of those agencies a lot of people don’t really understand,” Johnson said. “We’re a county office and … our funding is tax-based assessment. When you get your tax bill and you look down at all the expenses that you pay for, there we are.”
BASIN EVENTS: Oct. 16-24
COLUMBIA BASIN — Whether you feel like shopping, crafting, learning or seeing a show, there’s something happening for you this week in the Basin. Oct. 16 ‘My Family (Mi Familia)’ screening Spanning three generations, “My Family (Mi Familia)” is a heartfelt drama that follows the Sánchez family as they build their lives in East Los Angeles. Through love, hardship, triumph, and sacrifice, the film explores the immigrant experience, the strength of family bonds, and the traditions that connect one generation to the next. Lowrider show and taco truck before the screening. Sponsored by Columbia Basin Allied Arts, EDUBS C/S and the Moses Lake Creative District. $12 per person. Doors open at 6 p.m., film begins at 7 p.m. at the Moses Lake Civic Center Auditorium, 401 S. Balsam St. Tickets and info: www.cba-arts.org.
Moses Lake author encourages women to look beyond church culture norms
MOSES LAKE — A Moses Lake author’s book, “A Christian Woman Striving to Live Her Faith in a Man-Controlled World,” takes aim at the role to which many churches relegate the female half of their congregations. “It’s to encourage women in the faith,” Linda Curran said. “A lot of churches say, ‘Teach Sunday school, do this, do that, but don’t (evangelize.)’" In her book, Curran recounts a time when she moved to a new community and joined a church there. She was surprised to learn that, as a new female member, she had been automatically assigned church cleaning duties. When she questioned it, she wrote, she was met with condescension and her objections were brushed aside. In other churches, she said, women who were capable of teaching were relegated to “women’s ministry.”