# Eating Carp



## ShakeDown

I was reading something on another forum this morning, where some guy was asking for carp recipies. I was chowing down on a bagel at the time, and started thinking that my cream cheese was carp butter. Now that I'm already a bit sick to my stomach (the damage is done), I was wondering if anyone has ever fileted one of those yellow monsters for consumption. How'd it taste, and how'd you prepare it? Just curious!


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## mrfishohio

Just order a McFish fillet & you know !!  
Actually I've heard they are real good, baked. Somehow they got a bad rep here, but of course are treasured elsewhere in the world.


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## tpet96

They are still a delicacy in Germany and Russia. Most of the commercial market is geared toward the Jewish community in New York and New Jersey. I've had smoked carp. You can purchase it (not sure about now....this was 3 years ago) from Cheesehaven up in Port Clinton. Not bad. I've had sheephead before too believe it or not. It was actually very good. The lady that made it had added cream of mushroom or chicken (can't remember) to it, and bread. Made like a shredded fish sandwich.


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## RiverRat

Jewish markets sell CARP meat only....a very important food item to some.
The bad rap carp have gotten is because of the "infamous" mud vien, which is only in real life the thick vien that runs along the latteral line of the fish.Since carp can "feel" things beyound most other fish, this might explain why thiers is rather large>
Anyway, Carp is suposed to be one of the best smoked & canned fish around.
Carp were brought over here as a food fish..but somehow got a very bad rap??

Talk to Bob B. he'll explain it way better than i can..and as for the McFish, yea probably right as we have a rather large carp netting operation right here in Ohio for carp to be sold to certain fish markets, paylakes, ect...so i bet McD's gets thier fish from such operations???

Also Shawn W. has tried carp and said it was VERY good, so maybe he can shed some light on the subject too.


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## ShakeDown

Yeah, they do have a bad rap here. Doesn't help that they're labeled as forage fish in the states...then again, all you have to do is visit the spillway at Pymy and see the carp stacked waist deep and eating anything thrown into the water, which is pretty nasty. 

Sheeeeephead....BLECH!


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## tpet96

> Carp were brought over here as a food fish..but somehow got a very bad rap??


It's called World War 2 my friend  The carp is a delicacy to the Germans. During WW 2, Americans showed their Anti-German setiment by harvesting those fish and slitting their bellys, throats, cutting off fins/tails and releasing them back into the water. Up until that time, they were common table fare here in the US. Well after WW2, that "ritual" stuck around. That's why today you see people throwing those so called "trash" fish up on the bank. They were taught to do that by their elders, or have seen others do it. I've taken people fishing for carp before that have never fished a day in their life, and that's all they do now. It's not just because it's not good table fare, its because of the past history, and how those things play down from generation to generation.

And for the record, carp were introduced into fish farms in the US in the mid to late 1800's. The fish were reared there and stocked as a food source during the depression times. This was done by the US Fish Service (US Fish and Game Service now).


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## twistertail

I have canned carp before and it makes good fish patties. I have also smoked it and its just like any other smoked fish, the brine that you use is what makes the difference. I have also canned suckers and they are good too. I have fried up sheephead also, if you clean them right they can be pretty good.


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## steelmagoo

I deep fried a 4 or 5 pounder once, removed the mud vein etc. Didn't like it. My in-laws live on the Illinois River (Meredosia, Illinois) and they used to eat a lot of it. They say it is all about preparation, soaking, scoring, etc. Down there they also do sheephead, which they call white bass.


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## TimJC

I just read about how good sheephead are to eat last night on roughfish.com. How convenient that this conversation start up here and now.


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## catking

Why would anybody go through all the trouble to eat a carp, when we have some very tasty cats swimmin in the same waters  Well, I'll take that back, farm raised cats  CATKING.........


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## PAYARA

i ate some while i was in Germany and have had some
here as well.both were cooked different,but there was 
nothing wrong with the taste of either.in Germany
you can walk into a store and buy live carp that will
be cleaned for you right on spot.the size of these
tanks were masive,with loads of small carp of
1-2lbs in them.i DO know the proper way to clean these
fish,i was taught by several different people.one form Isreal(who showed me bank side on a real carp,that did not
come from me  )and 2 guys from Russia,also met a guy from Hungry that offered some good advice on the cleaning.i find it an interesting subject.
but iam in no way for the killing and eating of any carp.
in the US or abroad


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## Fishman

I've actually done my fair share of filleting carp. At Kincaid hatchery (I think thats the place I was at) There they use carp fry as their transitional food for juvinile muskys. They start them on brine shirmp and then move them up to carp fry before moving them over the blunt noses. Well anyhow, after they spawn the carp they are basically useless to them. So the college I go to, gets to go and get the pituitary glands from them. Pituitarys from fish, particularly pre-spawn, spawning, and post-spawn fish are rich in the hormones that induce fish to spawn. Since the hormone that induces a fish to spawn are "basically" the same and carp are so readily available the pituitary glands are harvested from them, which is very very bloody event since your basically just lobbing the top of their heads off to get to the middle of their brain. We'll after we do that we fillet the fish so we can use the carp fillets for largemouth bass production ( theres a plus side to this, nothing goes to waste ) From what I saw the fillets are very red along the lateral line, but the rest of the meat looks just like that from any other fish. My professor along with some other students took some of the fillets home, cut that red portion out. Apparenly the red portion has the highest fat content because of that it also contains the highest ammount of heavy metals ect. My friend who took some of th fillets home said he mixed them in with some saugeye and his wife was none the wiser to the fact she was eatting carp. Now to a connoisseur of fish, one could probably tell a difference, but otherwise they are probably pretty good.


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## PAYARA

fishman,

where can i get the pituitary of carp????ive been after some for a few years(i use it for several fish breeding projects  )iam not going to get it out of the fish i catch thats for sure  it really is a GREAT spawing aid,and some of the most challenging fishes to breed in captivity have bred in days after being injected.i know the proper anestetics(sp)to use before the injecting,ect,ect.the
hormones really ripen the females and send males as
well as females into BIG TIME heat.do some playing with
water conditions and anything,with anyfish is totaly
possible.  these hormones is how some fish keepers
get very rich


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## Corey

A friend and fishing buddy gave me his secret to fixing Carp. I was hesitant to try it but finally did, last Fall, and it's on my list of what to stock in the freezer this year. He filets the Carp and skins the filets. Then he cuts the meat into small, shrimp sized pieces. He then drops the pieces, a few at a time, into boiling water and lets them boil for one minute or less. ( I settled on between 40 and 50 seconds after trying it) He then drains the pieces and chills them in the refrigerator. Eat them like Shrimp Cocktail, with coctail sauce. They're actually delicious!


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## steelmagoo

Maybe the Linesville hatchery? http://www.fish.state.pa.us/Fish/dir_fcs.htm


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## Fishman

PAYARA,

Buying pituitary isn't cost effective at all. Your going to be looking at about 200 dollars per gram, maybe higher, maybe slighly lower if you're considering buying it in large quanitys (5+ grams). I would take the price into consideration before sparing a few carps their lives, since after all the pitutiarys are going to cost a carp somewhere its life so you can have its hormones. There are alternatives of pituitary hormones, they can be bought species specific but those are even more costly. Carp are the cheapest by far. There are some chemicals that can be used, but off the top of my head I can't think of them.

Pituitarys are very small, but can be seen with the human eye. They are easy to extract provided the carp is "lobotimized" properly. Don't quote me on this, but I think carp have on of the largest pituitarys of readily available fish.

Injections of these hormones is based on the species and weight of the fish. If you want some numbers as far as mL goes for injections I can provide you with what I have. I've never personally used the numbers I have but they are stated as working, but as always if you over do it, I don't accept reponsibilty.


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## Fishman

Oh, one more thing. As to spawning carp in captivity its faily easy. Aquire the fish when they are near spawn, drop your water temperature below their favorable temperature levels (64-72). High 50s SHOULD keep them from spawning but on the verge of dropping everything they have. Increase the water temps when you want it to happen and nature will take its course.


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## PAYARA

yeah i want carp patuitary because they are cyprinids,and so are species i would like to spawn.shoot think patuitary
is expensive try carp pharamones  BTW know any
place to get carp pharamones?

also,your refering to carp spawning in capivity in
ponds?indoor ponds?green house ponds?or what?you could get ripe fish from the wild and just hand strip them.

one more thing,how long can the fish be dead before 
removeing the gland?must it be done soon after death?
how should it be stored after being removed?
just curious to all this,thanks


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## Fishman

Remove the pituitary from the carp right after you kill it. I think if you take the pituitarys and put them in a saline water solution then crush the putitarys and freeze it you can keep the solution for a year or so. I'm not exactly sure on that, but I'll look it up here in a few minutes. You can also dry them out and save them, I think .

The spawning methods I described work anywhere. The hardest part would be finding a water source or a means of keeping water in the range where you want it and have the capabilty to increase the temperatures when you see fit.

You could hand strip carp and fertilize the eggs yourself, provided you know how to "culture" them from that point forward. I think its done with McDonald jars, a common egg hatching peice of equipment, not sure why you would want to spawn a carp though, unless you want to use the fry for feeders.

HCG is the name of chemical you can use to spawn fish with as well. I'm not sure on the price of how much it cost, but its probably going to be expensive if not more so than pituitary hormones.


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## Fishman

Whoa just learned something myself. Here I had always been under the impression that HCG is a chemical, looks like its acutally a hormone extracted from no other than humans. Pregrant females unrine to be exact. HCG is human chorionic gonadotropin, and apparenly only licensed people can use it or at least sell it. Maybe vets have access to it and can sell it for fish spawning purposes, this I do not know.

Carp pituitarys are the only thing I have any expierance with being used for spawning. You mentioned wanting to use them for cyprinids but the hormones that are produced by the cyprinds are the same as that produced by any other family. Centrarchids for example could be induced with cyprind pituitary or vise versa. 

I still need to double check on the storage methods, I'll post it here in a minute.


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## Fishman

Here we go, pituitarys can be stored in acetone, initally the acetone should be changed a few times a day. After a few acetone treatments dry the pituitarys and they can last up to 2 years. Apparently they begin to loose potency and are never as good as fresh pituitary.

I made an error, mix the crushed pituitarys with a water saline solution for injections.

Here is the name of another chemical you might want to check into Ovopel, its relativly new on the market and I have a feeling its going to be expensive as well. The bottom line is free carp + time and effort = free pituitary


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## PAYARA

Dude,very interesting info here,thanks alot.  

i was more specific with the carp pituitary for breeding
other cyprinids because of them all being the same family,
and all the succsesful spawings of the cyprinid species i want to breed were injected with hormones from another
larger cyprinid species.i have never heard/read of any
records where they were injected with another species
from a different family used.that is interesting that they
can be mixed matched like that.

i have tried to hand strip carp succsesfully on the bank  
but its alot of time and i have yet to get it done.you first
have to get a female and a male(which during spawning
is not very hard to call which is which while they are still
in the water)either catch or net one of each,sack them,
and then try to keep them still long enough to strip
some eggs with the vent under water(should be easy on
a really ripe female).getting the milt form the male is
the hardest because you cant really see it without good
light,or at least i could not really see it(i know i was releaseing it,and over the eggs)i was doing this with
10lb fish and useing a rubber maid container  
(talk about makeshift)my biggest problem was keeping
the fish still long enough.once i had finished this shoddy
hand strip job,i hurried to the house with an awaiting
10gallon with the big air stones going and small sponge filter.i placed the eggs in and was hoping for the best.
temps were kept at lake water temps of teh time and
the tank was accually filled with lake water.but the eggs
were fungus in 4 days  true, i really have no experience in this at all.but i did not think this would
fail like it did.something when wrong  
i think i may have over estimated the strength 
and hardiness of the carp eggs.


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## FishnJoe

maybe people eat more carp then they know


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## Fishman

Payara,
Fungus is the number 1 killer of eggs. Next time try using something thats a bit more sterile, tap water after sitting out for a few days perhaps. As soon as you see fungus on the eggs, treat them with formalin replace the water and just wait for the next fungus infection. Formalin is cheap and probably the best chemical to use for treating fungus on eggs.

Dead eggs should always be removed on a daily if not a few times a day basis, since they are the most succeptable to fungus. Dead eggs will generally appear white or be floating around.

Since you're doing this with homemade methods, which I think is really cool , place your areator directly at the bottom of whatever it was your holding them in. This way the bubbles moving upward move the eggs around allowing all of the eggs to get the proper levels of dissolved oxygen.

Another thing that might help you spawn some carp is to try it on a smaller scale. Instead of using 10,000 eggs try just 100 it would definitally make things a lot easier, not to mention if you having trouble getting milt from the males then it would save you all that squeezing.

Another thing that could of happened was your male wasn't ripe enough yet? Generally when a male is ready to go, just picking him up out of the water will cause him to start dripping milt, the same goes for females and their eggs.


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## PAYARA

yeah,the fungus is definally the no.1 killer of eggs.
most fish(that practice parental care)will do away
with the dead,decaying eggs themselves.but with fish
like carp,being egg scattering fish that do not tend to
there eggs it makes dead egg removeal in artificial 
incubation situation a tough task.this was one of my
biggest problems i had while breeding mouth brooding
cichlids.i would remove the eggs,esspecially from younger
inexperienced mothers that would ussually eat or spit
the brood out before they were ''done''.i would put the eggs which were taken from the mothers mouth into
an artifical egg tumbler rigged up from a plastic jar,
netting,air line,uplift tubing,ect.and i would allow the
jar to float around in the breeding tank with the air 
constantly tumbling the eggs just how its done in the
mothers outh.i would experience fungus on some of the
eggs but ussually i would still get a good hatch,sometimes
the entire brood would fungus.but i never removed or
treated the fungused eggs for fear of ruining the entire
brood.i believe that with carp eggs i will take ''risks''
into trying the ''drugs''  the different treatments
that are used for egg treatment.and try other things
such as doing it on a smaller sacle to see what happens.
its alot easier to play with things when you dont have 
pay for your subjects  i believe i will order some of the
treatments soon to have a supply of in the comming months.the Formalin is definally on the list,had been
for a while,but liek i said i didnt fully trust those treatments
for some reason.thanks for the info.i will post any results i
have if i can accually pull this off


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## Fishman

Best of luck to ya, should be an interesting experiance. The formalin isn't dangerous at all, provided ya just follow the proper treatment levels so you don't over do it.

Once again, best of luck and keep me updated.


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## Lewzer

Hey Payara, 
I'll sell you the wife's urine cheap!  

I can see the look on her face now. Dear, will you pee in my 55 gal tank? I want the fish to start spawning.


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## Fishman

LoL!


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## PAYARA

hey man,i may have use for it.


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## xdfyuan

Dear sirs
We are from carp pituitary extract (CPE)farm from China. 
it is wildly used in fish breeding industry,
1. our price is USD 180/ gram, min order 10 grams.
2. we could offer sample order (1-2 grams) to check quality
3. we have certificate and test report based on quality control
if you intreseted , we could sent you more info, pic, technical info etc.


best regards
Liyuan


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## Sleprock

180 gram 
x 10 = $1800

I am going carp fishing i got the hookup, 

just kidding


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## willyb021

eww you guys actually eat carp? yeah they have a bad rep , cause theyre nasty and will eat anything. theyd eat a turd if it was in front of them .


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## oarfish

willyb021 said:


> eww you guys actually eat carp? yeah they have a bad rep , cause theyre nasty and will eat anything. theyd eat a turd if it was in front of them .


so does the catfish


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## Star1pup

willyb021 said:


> eww you guys actually eat carp? yeah they have a bad rep , cause theyre nasty and will eat anything. theyd eat a turd if it was in front of them .


I used to raise chickens and their eating habits also include pecking poop. Rabbits also eat poop at night instead of chewing a cud. You guys still hungry?


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## papaperch

Here is all I know about the subject of Carp flesh. When we were kids back in the 1960's we used to shoot them with bows in a sewage treatment plant pond. The only thing I ever seen in this water were carp. No catfish , no bluegill nothing but carp. Water that was so full of ***** that nothing else could live in the Carp was thriving.

This forever settled any question of me partaking in the consuming of carp flesh.

By the way technically the carp is not a fish but the largest member of the minnow family.


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## Star1pup

I think the ability of the carp to live in water other fish will not survive in is part of the problem. Anything living in foul water will take up the taste in its flesh.


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## Lewzer

> eww you guys actually eat carp? yeah they have a bad rep , cause theyre nasty and will eat anything. theyd eat a turd if it was in front of them .


So will tilapia and people actually pay to eat those nasty trash fish.


This is a neat thread from the past. My wife was pregnant back then in 2004 and now our daughter starts kindergarten next Monday. Time flies.


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## BingeAndPurge

People like tilapia because it is bland.

I had what I believe was carp in Iraq with the Iraqi Army. They specifically made my team eat with them that day because my buddy told some Iraqi Lt. that I didn't like fish. Not that that was true (quality sushi is by far my favorite food), but just to get them to give me a hard time. I'll eat anything that can be eaten once. Anyway, the Iraqi carp wasnt bad at all. They left the scales and skin on, and the fillets were huge hunks of meat. I didn't get sick or anything, which was always my biggest concern when eating Iraqi food.


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## [email protected]#$carp

Have eaten carp it wasnt offensive.Had it at someones house who knew how to clean it proper. wouldnt doit again though.


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## Fishman

I just opened this. Notice the timeline of the entire thing... someone tried to sell us carp pituitary 6 YEARS after it was initially posted. Payara should have this down to a science by now


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## johnboy111711

what happened to payara


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## TimJC

He still visits the Carp Angler's Group forum, but doesn't post much. There is an Ohio carp forum now, so he may be spending time over there.


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## WiseEyes

Why do people fish for them.....If anyone eats them come find me at Berlin the middle of May and I will hook u up with a few hundred I bow fished out


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## TimJC

WiseEyes said:


> Why do people fish for them.....If anyone eats them come find me at Berlin the middle of May and I will hook u up with a few hundred I bow fished out


They are fun to catch and the 20+ pound fish put up a hell of a fight. I have never fished for food, and I got over the stigma that carp have in this country when I accidentally caught one for the first time. 

Believe it or not, carp are the most sought after recreational fish in Europe. The market over there is similar to bass fishing here.


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## PAYARA

Just saw this myself..


John-I'm still around,man.Still fishing as much as ever (in the suitable 
months).I don't post much on here anymore as theres is really no discussion 
in the forum,I really don't post much anywhere anymore as Tim mentioned.
I just linger about.

Fishman-It was fun reading through those old,horribly typed posts on my 
early hand stripping efforts...lol...I never did resume this.I do think about 
trying it again every spawn but never do.I don't think I was successful the
first time,years ago, because what I was releasing from the male wasn't 
actually milt!I now know what proper carp milt looks like and it is not thin 
and yellowish...lol....And you're 100% correct,I WAS trying all of this too 
early and now know that there is no need to force the milt from the males,
as when they're spawning and covered in tubercles,the milt will just 
pour from them.


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## Jigging Jim

WiseEyes said:


> Why do people fish for them.....If anyone eats them come find me at Berlin the middle of May and I will hook u up with a few hundred I bow fished out


Carp are considered a Trophy Fish in the Country of England. Big $$$ in Tournament Fishing for them. It's just starting to catch on in the U.S.A. (Thanks to our Enland friends). I'm sure that many of them are eaten there. Of course, the Asian People eat them too - although Carp are only considered "food" in the Asian Countries.


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