Carp

[GEEZER]

If I could find the grave(s) of whoever introduced carp into Utah, I would love to leave some of my liquid body waste there!
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF]As you know, I have spent a fair amount of time studyin' up on the history of good ol' UL. My best intel is that the carp were sent out in a tank car from the midwest in the 1886. I also understand that it was a fed thing...not something requested by the early pioneers. They had knocked the heck out of the trout population and Uncle Sugar was just trying to help everybody out with something that would do well in the big shallow desert puddle that was Utah Lake.

We best not remind Washington that they had a hand in the original plantings. Next thing ya know they'll wanna be registering all carp...and there will be background checks for anybody who fishes in Utah Lake.

Maybe that wouldn't be a bad idea. If it were made illegal to catch or possess carp then the "criminals" would clean them out.
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[fish_fear_me2]

A background check may greatly reduce combat fishing in some areas[laugh]
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[zburninator]

I like it tube dude
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[raghorn4]

"Bucket Biology on the Federal Level"[laugh]

...[#0000ff]and there will be background checks for anybody who fishes in Utah Lake.
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Half would not pass a background check[]
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[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000FF]Which half? Top or bottom? Male or female?

I know there are a lot of Utah Lake goobers who probably couldn't pass a basic intelligence test. I have encountered some real Mensa rejects. But then again, without their "eddicated" input I would never have known about the hunnerd pound blue cats and flatheads in that lake.

But the next step is going to be registration of all fishing rods. They are dangerous, you know. There are fishermen killed every year while fishing...and even some while fishing for carp. Scary what you encounter out there on the water.
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[FishMcFisherson]

I knew clicking on this link was a trap.
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[dtayboyz]

They were brought to the US for food. They are on ice at many of the fish markets in major cities. YUCK YUCK YUCK. Geasey nasty crap. Maybe we could feed them to the wolves when the elk are gone.
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[raghorn4]

I think we would have to figure out witch rods were labeled "assault" rods first
Spinning rods would be considerd a "General purpose tool" so they would be OK
Ice rods have there place, but do little damaged, unless its an eye[pirate]

So it comes down to fly rods/trolling rods. Equally dangerous in the wrong hands.
Witch one gets the label?[]
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[TubeDude]

[#0000FF][cool]Do you have any personal experience with eating carp? Most people who have the "yuck reflex" are merely mirroring what others say...others who also have not eaten carp.

I have eaten carp prepared by others in several places around the country. And I have prepared it myself with a variety of recipes...including baked, steamed, boiled and fried. And smoked, of course.

Carp are basically a fine food fish, but have lots of bones to deal with while preparing them...or during the cooking process. But once you get past the bones the flesh is mild, flaky and almost without any real "carpy" taste. The key...as with many species of fish...is to use carp from clean waters and from environments in which they maintain a varied diet of plant and insect life. Carp that come from shallow muddy waters...usually nasty habitat of their own making...are not so enjoyable. Kinda like a lot of the trout I have eaten as well.

As others have mentioned, on other threads, I have served carp to others without them knowing what it was. And in side by side taste tests with other more prestigious species the carp often gets more votes than the "other white meat" fishies.

When I Iived in Sacramento, I caught a lot of salmon and steelhead. I almost always had some smoked goodies in my refrigerator. My buddies had no qualms about raiding my stash whenever they came over. On one occasion, I substituted the usual smoked salmon for some "carp strips" I had filleted and smoked. When the Monday night football gathering convened, the guys hit that carp with a vengeance...and cleaned it up...gushing about how that was the best smoked salmon I had ever done. Thankfully, none of them "ralphed" when I clued them in about the change of species. But they were a bit more careful after that.
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[fish_fear_me2]

My grandfather said he cooked a lot of carp during the depression. As you said he claimed the bones were the biggest issue but the carp meat itself was delicate and flakey. I personally have never had a strong inclination to try it. I bet if you smoked it I would eat it [laugh]. I know years ago while fishing the weber river for whitefish and browns on a nymph I would catch a lot of suckers. I would toss them out on the bank and the next day at the same place there would be a lot of muscrat tracks and not a sign of the fish. One day as I was tossing one out an older lady asked me what I was gonna do with that fish. She said you damn trout fishermen.... she asked if she could have the 5 or 6 I had caught and I said certainly. She went off to get a gunny sack to carry her fish. She had a bottle of fish and a couple saltines when she returned. She told me to try it. It was delicious. She told me that was the suckers I was tossing up on the bank. She also handed me a recipe card with the recipe...Over the years I lost it but...who knows
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[dtayboyz]

Don't eat fish period! I'm fifty years old and have tried lots of varieties prepared lots of ways and I just don't care for it. However, if I was hungry . . . . .

Had an Aunt who made baked carp and the family would gobble it up.

Had a piece of smoked sturgeon once and didn't hook a fish for six months.

Granny would bottle and pressure cook suckers, Grandad ate it on a sandwich with water cress he harvested from a spring near Lava Hot Springs.

Halibut or salmon from Alaska is OK once or twice a year.

Haven't tried McBites yet.

Any bass over 15 inches has enough mercury it it to make you sick.

Small walleye fillet microwaved with butter and garlic is kinda like lobster.

Fried bluegill eggs are yummy.

Make the voices stop
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[CoyoteSpinner]

[quote raghorn4]Witch one gets the label?[][/quote]

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infinite witches....that's what we need.
Can a witch ride a fishing rod like a broom?


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Maybe missed on the "other" thread - posted a link to a sight with a plethora of recipes. I'm shore you could find some sucker recipes.

[center][url "http://www.bassonhook.com/fishforfood/carprecipes.html"]CARP RECIPES[/url]
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As suggested - secret's in the sauce, and spice, well - and smoke. No bones about it!
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[left]TD - surprised it's taken you so long to jump into these threads! Knowing what a carp-lover YOU are!
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[left]Trust everyone's taken "the survey". jeepers.

[raghorn4]

Sorry. I went to the "Sy Robertson" school of higher ed.[]

"Aint gonna fix it, Jack!"
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[Therapist]

The sucker run on the Provo River was a major event for first the Native Americans and then the Pioneers. Suckers were captured and pickled by the Pioneers, with barrels and barrels of them being shipped to SLC. Eventually both the suckers and the Trout ran out and that is when the Carp were introduced.

Both Suckers and Carp are very edible. I believe that the Asians have the best method of preparing both species. They scale and gut the fish, then score it in a diamond pattern. If steaming, the whole fish is placed in a steamer basket with hot peppers and green onions and steamed till done. They then pour a combination of hot oil ( 400 degrees ) and soy over the fish, which crisp's the flesh and skin. IF deep frying, coat the fish in cornstarch and drop in hot oil.

The purpose of scoring is to open the fish up so the small bones are exposed to the heat of the steam or oil, which soften and almost dissolve them. Pickling and pressure canning them will do pretty much the same.

So give em a try. I have done the same thing that Pat did to his buddies with smoked carp. Pretty good.

[Jazzperch1]

My grandparents came from germany in the 50's and my grandma was wondering where to get carp to eat for the boiled carp that they like to eat there. I guess the water over there where they get them is alot cleaner than your typical carp waters and i guess the carp over there were a little different, but both my grandparents stand behing that carp is good. I even said to them once when i was going to the jordan if they wanted one and they laughed and said not those kind.
so i guess its personal experience, ive never tried it and probly wont unless someone else is preparing it somewhere but id be willing to try it if its prepared good[cool]
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[TubeDude]

"TD - surprised it's taken you so long to jump into these threads! Knowing what a carp-lover YOU are!"

[cool][#0000FF]Well, I enjoy a good healthy "discussion", but when a thread is mostly fueled by emotion and unfounded assumptions I tend to shy away. I've got plenty of my own unfounded opinions.

I have firmly established that I ain't no purist. I readily do battle with any species available, on whatever tackle is at hand. I do have my preferred species, but when I ain't catchin' the ones I love, I catch the ones that will play...or something like that.

As many have freely admitted, there are not many fish that can outslug a carp of similar size. They are smart, often hard to catch and when they are hooked they don't quit easy. If we weren't all so prejudiced against them...by hand-me-down and misinformed information...we might be a bit more open-minded about carpkind.

But when it comes to carp in Utah, you gotta take a reality pill. Their introduction was ill-advised and has proven to be the bane of many streams and lakes...especially Utah Lake, Yuba Reservoir and the Bear River system. The feds were just trying to help out with a hardy fish species for Utah Lake when they railroaded in those first carp. After all, Utah was still a territory in those days...not a state yet. And there was little in the way of good biology to cause them to be more careful about where they dumped their scaly darlings. We have all learned a lot more than we wanted to since then.

I believe that a serious carp reduction in some of their habitats would definitely benefit the ecology and the sustainability for other species. Carp do ruin habitat for "cleaner" fish that do not root in the mud or destroy vegetation. Heck, they even ruin their own living quarters. Look at Yuba. When there used to be a balance the walleyes, pike, cats and perch trimmed the herd (of carp) enough each year that they could all make a living. But when the lake was drawn down to puddle status in 2004 to work on the dam, only the carp could survive in the warm shallow remnants of the lake. A few pike and walleyes made it by going up the Sevier River until the drought broke and refilled the lake. But by then the carp had started an explosion. And before the predators could multiply enough to have any impact on the carp they were off and running. Add to that the annual flush of Gunnison upstream and all the carp that adds to Yuba, and it is ugly.

Yuba has never had much structure and no weed beds. Not much "natural" carp food...vegetation. So they have become piscivorous. They eat their own young and the young of other species...from the eggs to 4 inch long fry. When the perch were trying to make a comeback they had to fight the carp. In low water years the perch had poor spawns because of no flooded brush or structure. The carp slurped up the unprotected eggs and then herded whatever hatched into small shallow coves and vacuumed up the new fry. Lots of folks catch Yuba carp on lures and marvel at it. But they are only doing what they gotta do to survive...eat other fish.

Until something can be done to drastically reduce the carp in Yuba, it will be pointless to work on trying to build up other species. Thankfully the big pike like carplets. They can and do munch them up to 12 inches or longer. For what it's worth, I heerd tell of a couple of plans being kicked around by DWR to address the carp problem in Yuba. Hope it comes through.

Carp reduction in Utah Lake? Chortle and guffaw. The carp seining operations have been conducted on Utah Lake for several decades. When they could be sold commercially there were probably more carp removed on an annual basis than there are now with the feds' Junie recovery program. Nettin' ain't gettin' it. There has to be a more aggressive and creative approach...like mass destruction during the annual spring spawning fracas. Get bajillions of them naked and exposed and lay waste to them.

I will be attending a meeting at the Utah Lake Commission tomorrow and there will be a presentation on the current status and success numbers for the carp program. Might be intermesting.

There. I said my piece.
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[GEEZER]

Waaay back in the late '40s & early "50s, I ate quite a bit of bottled carp from the stream that feeds Pruess Lake south of Garrison UT.

My brothers & I went with our grandfather once to get them. Late spring or early summer as I recall. Grandpa would pitch them out on the bank with a pitchfork & we boys would put them in a washtub.

Grandpa prepared them & cut the meat into chunks. Grandma bottled them and we couldn't eat them until after July 4. I guess it took that long for the bones to soften. Anyway, Mom made patties like you'd make with salmon. They were good. That being said, I still have NO love for the ugly damn things.
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[UTmuddguy]

why dont we all get together and kill as many as possible when they are exposed. couple hundred people for a couple of days Im sure could do some damage.
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