Let's face it. For a long time, fishermen have held an overwhelming advantage over fish. Fish may have the home-field edge inasmuch as they know the murky depths and the impassable shallows better than their human pursuers. But throw in sonar, irresistible lures and sharp hooks, and the betting line is clear: Put your money on the guy in the bass boat.
But maybe, just maybe, a few fish are figuring out a way to get a little revenge. In the rivers lacing the southeastern and midwestern United States, there has been a surge of incidents involving silver carp, which can weigh 20 to 100 pounds. The carp jump out of the water and do something their more timid brethren could only dream about: smack guys in boats upside the head.
The carp are not particularly discriminating.
Sometimes they whack people who are trying to help them. Duane Chapman, a U.S. Geological Survey fisheries biologist from Columbia, Mo., who is 6-foot-6, was standing in his boat one day and a carp -- displaying the vertical leap of a college basketball prospect -- popped him above the mouth.
"They jump crazy in the air when they see a boat coming," Chapman said.
Several state workers in Missouri have filed compensation claims after being hit by airborne carp.
Elsewhere, carp have landed on boat throttles, causing bursts of speed.
Chapman knows something has to be done. He and his pals are working on a plan to spread a fright pheromone. If scaring the carp away doesn't work, they might try the power of love: Their other plan calls for trapping the carp by luring them with a sex pheromone.
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