Lots of carp

I was gonna leave this one alone but now that somebody else agrees with me I feel bold.
I've gotta go with koi. In fact I'd bet on it.
I've seen many, many feral koi in my neck of the woods. Sadly, it's a pretty common animal, especially as you get closer to the city. The orange color, in an infinite variety of mixes with black, white, brown etc is standard. I don't know if wild carp throw off colored sports or just lots of people release koi but it's not uncommon to see a few colored ones mixed with the wild variety.
In fact, that's why I'd bet it's a koi in the photo. It's alot easier for me to believe a koi joined in with the crowd of its closest reletives than it is for me to believe a lone goldfish decided to crash the carp party.

Ive seen similar occurrences of large aggregations of Carp in the wild. About two years ago I happened upon a HUGE population of carp spawning in the shallows of Weiss Lake (North Alabama). There were hundreds of them, and they were all very large fish to boot. I didn't have any nets with me, and they weren't at all interested in feeding. I suppose I could have speared a few, but I didn't feel like having a dead 40 lb carp on the end of a stick to deal with at the time.
It was very interesting to see so many large fish in less than a foot of water. It's a pity they weren't something else native.

I'm with FarmerTodd in that this could be a useful resourse to feed hungry people. This great congregation of easy to net protein has tons of potential to do some good. If nothing else whether we like it or not these invasive pests are here to stay in these bodies of water and with their high fecundity I say we put them to use.

All of this talk about giving carp to feed the homeless reminds me of a Seinfeld episode where they try to give muffin stumps to a homeless shelter.

Rebecca: Excuse me, I'm Rebecca Demore from the homeless shelter.
Elaine: Oh, hi.
Rebecca: Are you the ones leaveing the muffing pieces behind our shelter?
Elaine: You been enjoying them?
Rebecca: They're just stumps.
Elaine: Well they're perfectly edible.
Rebecca: Oh, so you just assume that the homeless will eat them, they'll eat anything?
Mr. Lippman: No no, we just thought...
Rebecca: I know what you thought. They don't have homes, they don't have jobs, what do they need the top of a muffin for? They're lucky to get the stumps.
Elaine: If the homeless don't like them the homeless don't have to eat them.
Rebecca: The homeless don't like them.
Elaine: Fine.
Rebecca: We've never gotten so many complaints. Every two minutes, "Where is the top of this muffin? Who ate the rest of this?"
Elaine: We were just trying to help.
Rebecca: Why don't you just drop off some chicken skins and lobster shells. (carp)
Elaine: I think I might.

Yeah, but it's not like I was just giving away my scraps. Have you ever had smoked carp from a heavy metal free water body? It's up there with yellow perch through the ice, 16-18" walleye, and pike or pickerel in my book. I guess I have to add logperch to the list now too

Yum yum yummy.

Todd

It's all perception Todd. Most Americans think poorly of Carp as a food fish yet a coworker that fled Germany under Nazi rule, speaks fondly of the special events when his family had the money to buy and prepare fresh carp. Carp to him was our Thanksgiving day turkey.

I think any safe protein source should be utilized to help the needy but I could imagine the media would have a field day with a story about carp being fed to the homeless. If we could only get the people that make fake crab sticks to cooperate, we might have something.

It would definitely have a lot to depend on how the media spins it. Have Alton Brown on the Food Network do a Good Eats show on how to prepare carp.

HAHA Alton Brown.. Not a bad idea. I had a similar idea for people who have large aquarium fish such as Pangasius sharks and knife fish. Chop em up, make meals for the homeless. That way, they don't end up in our waterways.

It would definitely have a lot to depend on how the media spins it. Have Alton Brown on the Food Network do a Good Eats show on how to prepare carp.

Actually Alton Brown already ate smoked carp on an episode of Feasting on Asphalt II. He stopped at a place that smoked commercially caught fish on the Mississippi and ate carp, buffalo, paddlefish, etc. It is all perception. Look at how many people automatically associate 'bottom feeder' with catfish and farmed with 'clean' or 'better'. We know that ictalurids function as a high trophic level predator and that farmed salmonids are rittled with disease or better than wild fish. Fisheries scientists need to do a better job of being or working with social scientists. Safe (sustainable?) protein source is really the key words. I think the crux within this is carp, and other exotic/invasives, are typically introduced as a food source. Now we've shunned them as a food source for various reasons. When we say 'hey lets utilize this overabundant source of protein' that encourages the whole vicious cycle to some extent to begin. It's alot harder to say 'lets utilize this overabundant source of exotic protein, but we can't get rid them, so we will manage them by encouraging a fishery'.

But since we're NATIVE fish enthusiats, wouldn't it be great if buffalo, carpsucker, redhorse, etc. were found in their historical abundance to utilize instead of carp....

I was thinking more along the lines of the managers netting the fish out and sending them to a processing place where they could feed hungry people. Get that win/win kind of thing goin'

And no, it's not a "koi", it's a wild type Carassius auratus with the golden color gene expressed. See how small the caudal base is in comparison to the depth of the body? It's closer to a "shubunkin" than a "koi", which are both just derivatives from this species. You can see how the cultured goldfishes are derived from the wild type here tho with a big specimen.

Newt, I've seen them up to about 2-3 lbs (hard to judge with that deep body). It would make a fine mount

In fact, I've seen one mounted. Where was that at? Cabellas in Dundee? Hrmmm...

Todd

The unfourtunate reality is that even giving away the carp people in the US wont take them so they end up in dumpsters or best case scenario as animal food wich we have had a lot of succes geting zoos to feed invasive fishes to their animals instead of the marine species check it out at http://carpbusters.c...asp?FORUM_ID=16

I work with a Polish guy, he's been in the Statese 20+ years. He also talks of his carp eating days back in Poland and Europe, but how everyone shuns them here...the reason they are here is for food stock! There was the NE regional carp fishing tournament on the Seneca River in Baldwinsville, NY last week... I am on the hunt for some clean water, I really want to try some.

http://www.acstourna..._northeast.html

I regularly catch large (12-14") white suckers while trout fishing near my house...those look delicious too....especially when I don't catch any trout!!!!!!!!

It would definitely have a lot to depend on how the media spins it. Have Alton Brown on the Food Network do a Good Eats show on how to prepare carp.

There was an episode of Iron Chef where carp was the featured ingredient. Pretty cool to see all the ways they prepared them. They picked their own live carp out of a tank at the start of the show. Should be available as a complete episode via NetFlix, one would think.
http://www.foodnetwo...0_31831,00.html

(2 of 5 parts, the first is just promo)

Edited by jase, 19 May 2008 - 12:16 PM.

I work with a Polish guy, he's been in the Statese 20+ years. He also talks of his carp eating days back in Poland and Europe, but how everyone shuns them here...the reason they are here is for food stock! There was the NE regional carp fishing tournament on the Seneca River in Baldwinsville, NY last week... I am on the hunt for some clean water, I really want to try some.

http://www.acstourna..._northeast.html

I regularly catch large (12-14") white suckers while trout fishing near my house...those look delicious too....especially when I don't catch any trout!!!!!!!!

Suckers are good eating by all accounts. I'd like to try carp too; I'll have to find some recipes and see what I can whip up.

Suckers are good eating by all accounts. I'd like to try carp too; I'll have to find some recipes and see what I can whip up.

For recipe ideas, you could start with that Iron Chef video I posted.

There's a book called "Fishing for Bufffalo" that has instructions for cleaning and all kinds of recipes for all kinds of rough fish. Carp, suckers, drum, burbot, gar, etc. I do not think that it is in print any more, however.

There's a book called "Fishing for Bufffalo" that has instructions for cleaning and all kinds of recipes for all kinds of rough fish. Carp, suckers, drum, burbot, gar, etc. I do not think that it is in print any more, however.

http://www.amazon.co...e/dp/0929636058

i dont understand why the europeans think the carp are so special that they even release them when they catch um,when i catch a stupid carp i throw it up on shore or smash them on a rock so i hope that makes u europeans feal good!!!death to all carp!!!!

i dont understand why the europeans think the carp are so special that they even release them when they catch um,when i catch a stupid carp i throw it up on shore or smash them on a rock so i hope that makes u europeans feal good!!!death to all carp!!!!

Hold on! What you makes us to think that Europeans are bad? Because they released carp into our rivers more than 100 years ago. Europeans HAVE no idea that carp will make huge impact on the native fishes so don't blamed on them and the improved management doesn't existed in back 100 years ago. Most carp invaded other waterway are NOT by Europeans but by us (guess who use the carp as bait).

Carp are a native fish in Europe, and an important game species. There is no reason for them to hate them or destroy them.

i still dont understand how they like them