The actor Paul Newman earned his nickname in the flick "Cool Hand Luke" by deluding his fellow prison inmates in a game of five-card stud. Holding only a king-high "hand of nothing," our hero bluffed others at the table into folding, with Newman declaring afterward that, "sometimes nothing can be a real cool hand."

The reference is timely, because Minnesotans are at a poker table just now, and the cards they're holding are pretty good — good enough to raise and call. But others in the game — in this case the Department of Natural Resources, key legislators and the governor — are bluffing, a trick that's worked for them before.

At issue are invasive carp — some silvers, others grass and bigheads — outlandishly ugly fish that are inexorably moving up the Mississippi River to Minnesota rivers and lakes. Late last year, 323 carp, including 296 silvers, were rounded up in Pool 6 of the Mississippi, primarily by Minnesota DNR field staff, the largest number gathered to date.

This followed the ghastly appearance in June last year of hordes of silver carp frolicking in midair beneath Lock and Dam 5 on the Mississippi, which is about halfway between Winona and Lake City, Minn.

Never before have so many of these finned creatures been found so far north, though their appearance has been long predicted by experts who worry that Lake Pepin and the Minnesota and St. Croix rivers, as well as their tributaries, are next on the invaders' hit list.

Should these carp reach Minnesota's home waters and establish reproducing populations, there goes the farm, as they say. No more gamefish, and no more tubing, boating or other water sports — unless, of course, you wear a helmet to brace for inevitable smacks in your noggin by gill-plated missiles that can weigh 40 pounds and more.

No one in Minnesota has more experience with carp of all kinds than Peter Sorensen, a professor at the University of Minnesota, and Sorensen's opinion is clear-cut, especially in light of the record number of silver carp spotted and caught last year in Pool 6:

These fish are coming. No one knows how soon they'll breach waters north of Lock and Dam 5 and begin breeding. But if past is prologue — for evidence, see the Ohio and Illinois rivers, among many others — their appearance upstream is inexorable, a nightmare that forever will haunt Minnesotans, their children and their children's children.

"No one in the world has ever eradicated these carp once they've started reproducing," Sorensen warns.

In the last legislative session, the Twin Cities-based group Friends of the Mississippi River joined with other conservation outfits to offer a bill to fund a $15 million deterrent at Lock and Dam 5. In combination with the DNR's ongoing capture efforts, the deterrent, its supporters believed, would give Minnesota its best chance to remain invasive carp-free for the foreseeable future.

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