Cleaning Carp?

[Deleted]

Anyone Debone Carp? I'm thinking of catching some and trying to cut Y Bones out.

Rockpile

[oxankle]

Rock; look on the net. Some time ago I ran across a video of a chef cutting up a carp in such a fashion that he could fry those little bones in.

[Deleted]

Apr 11, 2016 17:24:26 GMT oxankle said:

Rock; look on the net. Some time ago I ran across a video of a chef cutting up a carp in such a fashion that he could fry those little bones in.

Did this, looking harder I believe with extra work I can completely cut them out.

Everyone talking about them being Trash fish but I've ate them for years. Be nice take some roll it in Meal fry it up with Eggs and Hash Browns for Breakfast. And not worry over Bones.

Rockpile

[spacecase0]

I think the real issue with them is that they taste like what they swim in,
so if they have been swimming in a muddy river or stinky lake,
let them swim in clear water for a week or 2 before you eat them and you will not have the bad flavors

[bluemingidiot]

Too much trouble; too little reward. Tastes like carp.

I will skin and filet perch but the only use for carp is compost.

[Deleted]

Like I was telling one Guy back when I was a Kid people paid to Carp fish. That was the first fish my Grandpa would take me fishing for at the Local Pay Lake.

And according to the Word of God they are cleaner than Catfish. No I will not pass up a Catfish or Mud Bug.

Rockpile

[Deleted]

Carp have those little hair bones coming off the regular bones. I just fillet em as usual and then make X cuts across the fillets but not all the way through. That breaks up the hair bones and allows the deep frier to get the hot oil deeper into the flesh and soften the little bones. Also, pickled carp is quite good and the pickling juices dissolve the bones. One more thing is I never keep Carp or any other freshwater fish for that matter that is over about 3-4 pounds in weight, in my opinion at that weight the bones become too firm to "fry out" and they start to store fat, It's the fat is what to me gives some fish an "off taste".

If you ever get the chance to catch Fresh water Drum they are fantastic eating! Like a giant Blue Gill in my opinion. To the unfamiliar eye they may look somewhat like a Carp but they are a totally different fish, with firm white flesh, and very good!!!!! Tough to catch on hook and line but i get them often when I'm Bow fishing! Plus, you can dig the "drummer bones" from the head of the fish to make very sought after amulet pendant jewelry from the "Jesus bone". It's the two bones in their head that they drum together to communicate with each other. The local Native Americans used them as necklace prices. Those two bones have the letter "J" formed into the bone! Very cool, and fun to work with in creative ways!!!! If your not into digging the bones out yourself sometimes you can find them washed up on the shore after the fish dies and degrades, those two particular bones often float when released from the carcass! Sorry for the thread drift, I love the outdoors, fishing, hunting, its all me......

[paquebot]

I've never tried removing the Y-bones from carp. If too small to bake or steak, they are filleted and ground for fish cakes. We never let one go to waste. Also agree on their tasting as good or better than catfish. We fished for them in July and August when catfish meat was yellow instead of pink. That doesn't happen with carp. If there is fat stored in a big carp, scoring and baking on a board or rack releases a lot of that.

Martin

[bluemingidiot]

Cleaning is just the wrong word for something that ingests as much mud as the carp. Why not just cook the mud itself, because if someone likes the taste of carp they should appreciate the flavor of the local mud as well. And besides it would be a lot easier. Some people call carp pigs with fins. I strongly object to this description as it is unnecessarily insulting to pigs.

Carp is not native to America. Carp, along with Europeans, are in top 100 of the world's most invasive species. Europeans, having never eaten good fish, brought the carp to America in the mid 1800s. It would seem that those who families were here prior to that time had lost their European appetite for mud and not only preferred a cleaner taste, but like an ex-smoker exposed to cigarette smoke, found the carp taste abhorrent.

Carp is best used as a high protein food for chickens

[Deleted]

My wife said she just soon I not score them.

I went fishing today for them didn't do any good. I'm thinking of going fishing for Suckers soon which I know are much better.

Rockpile

[spacecase0]

Apr 13, 2016 0:23:47 GMT bluemingidiot said:

Cleaning is just the wrong word for something that ingests as much mud as the carp. Why not just cook the mud itself, because if someone likes the taste of carp they should appreciate the flavor of the local mud as well. And besides it would be a lot easier. Some people call carp pigs with fins. I strongly object to this description as it is unnecessarily insulting to pigs.

Carp is not native to America. Carp, along with Europeans, are in top 100 of the world's most invasive species. Europeans, having never eaten good fish, brought the carp to America in the mid 1800s. It would seem that those who families were here prior to that time had lost their European appetite for mud and not only preferred a cleaner taste, but like an ex-smoker exposed to cigarette smoke, found the carp taste abhorrent.

Carp is best used as a high protein food for chickens

my previous post seems to be lost on most people,
if they taste like mud, you are doing it wrong

[paquebot]

If you're concerned that they may taste like mud, don't fish for them in mud holes! All that I've ever had in entire lifetime have been from the Wisconsin River system. Still looking for my first bad-tasting buffalo, carp, or drum. Wish I could say that about some of the catfish from the same waters.

Martin

[bluemingidiot]

Apr 13, 2016 2:52:00 GMT spacecase0 said:

Apr 13, 2016 0:23:47 GMT bluemingidiot said:

Cleaning is just the wrong word for something that ingests as much mud as the carp. Why not just cook the mud itself, because if someone likes the taste of carp they should appreciate the flavor of the local mud as well. And besides it would be a lot easier. Some people call carp pigs with fins. I strongly object to this description as it is unnecessarily insulting to pigs.

Carp is not native to America. Carp, along with Europeans, are in top 100 of the world's most invasive species. Europeans, having never eaten good fish, brought the carp to America in the mid 1800s. It would seem that those who families were here prior to that time had lost their European appetite for mud and not only preferred a cleaner taste, but like an ex-smoker exposed to cigarette smoke, found the carp taste abhorrent.

Carp is best used as a high protein food for chickens

my previous post seems to be lost on most people,
if they taste like mud, you are doing it wrong

There's another line of thought that says put them immediately on ice.  Down here where God and the angels spend most of the year we don't have a lot of ice.  You want to let them swim in clean water for two weeks.  Again, too much trouble, too little reward.  It is not a texture and flavor I would choose.  And there are the bones.  But please feel free to come down and catch and eat this invader to your heart's content, preferably not in front of respectable fried catfish eating folks.

[Deleted]

I've never seen yellow catfish meat or pink for that matter. Catfish in good health and from non-polluted waters should be white meat fish when cooked correctly. I think the reason folks like Drum, Carp, Buffalo, and Suckers is that they will bite when nothing else will, they're easy to catch a big one, and there's a lot of them.

[paquebot]

Catfish are an oily fish with a high fat content. They store fat in their meat as do many other fishes. It is not so evident in smaller ones but large ones will show it in their back. It will begin at the head and gradually work back from there. When catfish or bullheads are skinned, the carcass should have a shiny pink cast. In warm months, after a summer of feeding, the fat will show as yellow beginning at the "shoulders". That's why that family can survive droughts by burrowing into the mud at the bottom of a drying lake.

I have caught more than my fair share of catfish and was the Wisconsin champion in 1959. Somewhere in the family albums, there is also a picture of me at around 10 years old standing beside a blue cat that we had caught the night before on a set line. It weighed 69 pounds.

Martin

[Deleted]

Here is a Old Video I made years ago cleaning a Buffalo.

Rockpile

[bluemingidiot]

Maybe you should put this on the Singles website. There's often a lot of awkward silence on a first date and this would be a great ice breaker for a homesteading pair.  Especially if you could overlay some romantic music.

[Deleted]

Good video BRP. I had never seen that done. Getting the mud line out and cutting through the Y bones would be a whole new aspect of cleaning fish for me. Eating bullhead or mudcats would be too, not that savory. Channel cats and blue cats, the ones with a forked tail, are what we go for, anything else gets to go back into the water. Same with oversize cats, they make better parents than they do dinners.

[Deleted]

Myths and legends.... seems to be a lot of what I'm reading here about Carp. I'm not ranting here, but instead offering a bit of free knowledge obtained by book study, and many years on the water as a guide to folks willing to pay to have a river experience that otherwise they may never have to opportunity to have. I also donate many hours a year as a "citizen scientist" to help study, count, and survey the local insect fauna and water conditions in our local river system here in the upper Midwest of Illinois. These studies would not be possible with the current state of this countries economy if trained local volunteers did not step up and donate time. I and others literally get into the water to turn rocks, capture "bugs" and filter the river bottom for invertebrates to identify, count, photograph and submit findings to the territory headquarters. Part of the Nationwide Stream Survey System. This information is part of many critical factors in determining the trends of the health of our river systems.

To start with Carp were introduced to North America as a food source fish. That means it was deemed an important source of readily available protein, and easy to replenish themselves. Main point was that they are good eating as well. Without Carp many of the original farmers in the Midwest around this and other river systems of this country would have effectively "starved out", this unpopular statement can be easily researched and found to be true. Fish markets have always been a cheap and easy way to keep "youngins" nourished. One fish market locally had the fortune to grow into a city in this area, namely Wilmington, Illinois. Wilmington's rich history with the river system is well known and celebrated.

Carp have successfully adapted to survive in nearly any source of water, be it clear or murky due to oversized and ultra efficient gill networks. They do not have a "mud vein" which is essentially something people speak of when "deveining raw shrimp. What most refer to a "mud vein is literally a highly specialized layer of dark or red fat rich meat long the sides of the fish. It is how they hear and feel whats going on in their environment. All fish have this lateral line but few have such a highly evolved line. This line due to the high fat content, can add a strong taste to the fish, it is easily removed by a second fillet slice if desired. It is very much like salmon, in that if you cook Salmon skin side up the fish will taste stronger, if you cook Salmon skin side down you et a milder flavor, I happen to like both at different times.

Did you know that Carp are the ONLY freshwater fish that swim in pods as Dolphins do? They do not swim in schools as all other fresh water fish do. Swimming in pods denotes a higher intelligence among fish. They also can communicate with each other with body language and chemicals released into the water. When flyfishing for Carp if you hook a fish in the front of the pod essentially your fishing is over for a few hours. If you keep hooking fish in the back of the pod you may catch fish all day until they know you are there! Also, if you put an arrow into a Carp they release a "death scent" chemical into the water that will disperse all of the remaining pod of Carp. I have reverence for the Carp in that in my opinion they are tougher to catch consistently that Trout are. They do not eat mud, as some would have you believe rather they sometimes shuffle the mud around with their snouts (that have highly sensitive "whiskers" in which to identify food sources) to scare up the Scuds, Damsel Fly larvae, Crane Fly larvae, and other in season bugs in the water bottom. One or two Carp will work up the bottom as the other stay at shoulders distance to catch the fleeing insects1 Yes, it's true, they work as a team just like Dolphins and Killer Sharks do! They are also Omnivores which will take advantage of any available food source including nosing through algae to get the snails that live in it, as well as sucking Cottonwood fluff from stream eddies and slow waters to obtain the oil rich tiny seed at the end of the tuft. They love Mulberries, and at the same time will take any insect, species of minnow, or unfortunate Crayfish that passes by. They are not bottom feeders as others have suggested, instead they work the entire water column and zone in on any areas that have the most food value to offer. I have made a goodly amount of money "putting people on the fish" of most species of freshwater fish in my life, Carp are the fish that at times can be the toughest to find. They are also absolutely the toughest fish to hook for most anglers. Taking a large Carp by the fly rod is an experience that will never be forgotten! Most people fly fishing for Carp will lose the fish in the battle of landing it due to improper equipment, or handling of said equipment. It is truly a once in a lifetime experience for most folks! 30 - 40 minutes of reel screaming, rod bending, drag busting, line breaking action are more the norm for this kind of fishing!

As to the eating of Carp, well they can be as delicious of a meal as any other food can be, provided the chef is knowledgeable, and skilled enough to be cooking in the first place!! But to be fair and to be honest, in Europe, Carp are considered to be a sport fish and killing one to eat is something only the lowest form of a fishermen would do! Thank you for your time in reading this, I promise every word I have written here is backed by factual, and researchable information, it is not personal thoughts or feelings.

[Skandi]

Apr 13, 2016 23:09:45 GMT @doingitmyself said:

! But to be fair and to be honest, in Europe, Carp are considered to be a sport fish and killing one to eat is something only the lowest form of a fishermen would do! Thank you for your time in reading this, I promise every word I have written here is backed by factual, and researchable information, it is not personal thoughts or feelings.

While youi're certainly correct in the UK here, that's not how most of Europe see them Eastern and cental Europe love to eat them, there's been clashes in the UK where imigrants from these countries do not understand that we consider carp fishing a sport, and not something you should  take and eat.  In Poland not only is carp eaten but it's even the christmas meal of choice. it's also on the christmas menu in Germany, Austria, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Croatia.
I've even seen it for sale here in Denmark, something I have never seen in the UK Though my stepfather spent many many hours trying to catch a big one!
Hugh fernley wittingstal (SP) shows how to turn a muddy monster into something edible in River Cottage Forever Episode 2 of 8 Though I cannot find a youtube for it so good luck!

[bluemingidiot]

Signs warn Polish anglers to 'stop eating all the carp'

"How are foreign nationals living in Britain going to learn English if everything is handed to them on a plate in their own language.
"I am sick to death of the taxpayer footing the bill for lunatic authorities to translate into different languages.
"They need to stop this ridiculous form of political correctness."
The Polish signs were erected alongside English signs at the entrance gate to the park last week.
They warn anglers that anyone caught fishing without a valid rod licence, which costs around £24, could face prosecution and a fine of up to £2,500.

Read more: www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-440226/Signs-warn-Polish-anglers-stop-eating-carp.html#ixzz45lVwGT9s

[paquebot]

There's a big shallow bay in Lake Wisconsin north of Merrimac, Stoner's Bay. It is an ideal place for carp to spawn. It's also easy to cut off with commercial nets. A company out of St. Louis would come in and net carp by the tons. There was a big holding pen to hold them until there was enough to bring in the tanker truck. (A second operation was done in Lake Waubesa in Madison.) This was usually right around Memorial Day depending upon water temperature. They were all for human consumption. There were some big females which took two men to lift into the pen. There were also some equally big catfish which had to be released. Why would there be catfish in shallow waters during the day? They were there to feast on the carp eggs!

Martin

[oxankle]

Tried to post this earlier--did not work.

Large catfish always have the "mud stripe", the sensory strip. Cut it away as Rock did his carp and the catfish meat is tasty. I've attended many a fish fry where 20 to 50 pound fish were served--hardly worthwhile to clean 3-pounders when you are feeding perhaps 40 men.

As for bullheads, the biggest I've seen here run to a pound or perhaps a bit more, almost always soft yellowish flesh. I've cooked just one, and it was so-so, but better than crappie.

The comments about cooking salmon stripe up and stripe down intrigued me. Poached salmon is always served stripe-up here, and I don't like the taste of salmon with stripe. All it takes is a deft slide of the fork to remove the stripe---it comes off very easily and leaves no after-taste.

[Deleted]

Use to live on a Creek would catch Bull Heads all the time so that is what we ate. Would also catch Carp.

Where we live now the two Main Fish are Trout and Redhorse Suckers. The Suckers are better eating than any fish. Gig them in the Winter at night, catch them on Rod and Reel during warm weather.

Rockpile

[nyhunter]

Spring bullhead is good eatin. Once the water warms up the flesh gets soft and they arnt as good untill fall around here. Never have eatin a carp though i'd like to try it. Everyone calls them a garbage fish and bowfish them for fertilizer.

[oxankle]

How strange it is that we think some foods are good and others low class. When I was a kid we ate trout, redfish, flounder, shrimp and crab because that was what we caught. In winter we had duck and goose. We ate rabbit, squirrel and quail during the depression years, and goat before it was a white man's dish.A lady tonight told of eating the big round snapping turtles of the Midwest. In La. the restaurants served turtle soup made from turtles big as wash tubs.

I would not hesitate to eat carp, redhorse, buffalo or anything I could catch if I was in need of protein.

[Deleted]

Apr 16, 2016 2:09:25 GMT oxankle said:

How strange it is that we think some foods are good and others low class. When I was a kid we ate trout, redfish, flounder, shrimp and crab because that was what we caught. In winter we had duck and goose. We ate rabbit, squirrel and quail during the depression years, and goat before it was a white man's dish.A lady tonight told of eating the big round snapping turtles of the Midwest. In La. the restaurants served turtle soup made from turtles big as wash tubs.

I would not hesitate to eat carp, redhorse, buffalo or anything I could catch if I was in need of protein.

Yelp won't pass up a Turtle

Rockpile

[Deleted]

I want to catch Asian "carp." I was obsessed with it for a while and learned everything I could about it. Did you know there are 3 kinds, they're not actually carp at all, and they're not even bottom feeders? People say they taste like walleye. The reason people call them "carp" is because of how boney they are and there are lots of youtube videos showing how to bone them. I'd love to catch a bunch and smoke them.