Carp Hunting

[Drm50]

Not to many people around here eat carp. Use to be a tradition to get Suckers in the spring runs and can them like Salmon. I don’t know when Carp arrived here but wish they would go back where they came from. In the creeks they are hard on gamefish spawn like smallmouth. When I was a kid we lived on Ohio River and there were 3 kinds of fish. Carp, catfish and Gar the only species that could survive in the pollution. River use to flood every spring before the Roller Dams. The water would go down trapping cornfields full of water about a foot deep. This would freeze and we would go carp hunting with an axe. See them under ice and smack ice hard as you could then chop him out. Summer time there was a factory with a fish pond on edge of town. They would pay 25 cents for golden carp. A few people ate them and we sold a few but mostly just threw them up on the bank. Now we have the Asian carp to worry about.

[richhodg66]

They've been here since the mid 1800s, brought here as a food fish, actually.

I doubt they're going away anytime soon, but I also doubt they are as damaging to native fish as many believe.

[Tripplebeards]

I watched thousands of 10” plus Asian carp jump behind the house last year. Everyone thought I was crazy because there were not reports in our area of them. Look what was floating by my dock a few months ago...



I sent the photo into fish and wildlife. I was the first one to report them apparently.

[richhodg66]

They say they have them in Kansas, I saw the signs at Clinton reservoir maybe 70 miles east of here. I've never seen one. I have heard they are better eating than the common carp, with the way Americans eat, we just need to market it such that it's trendy and eco friendly to eat them and their populations will go away in no time.

[popper]

Milford is mostly a gravel based lake that the muskie love - as do northern. A sight feeders, they need the clear water. FIL moved to Lebanon so we fished Ol hickory before he passed. Never made it to Milford. He had 3 girls, none liked to fish so I 'got' the duty, love to fish but don't much eat any. The 'new' breed of asian carp we have is basically a farm fish for asia. The Viets I used to work with said they used them to clean the rice paddys and provide fertilizer. Kill off may have been from chems to clean out the water weeds (root killer) they use down here. So bad you are requires to wash and decontaminate you boat and motor when leaving the water. Also problem with the zebra mussels. Many states now require hard soled wading boots, no canvas boots either.
Here any bait minnow are to be dumped on the bank to die vs tossing back into the water as most are carp minnows. Same with gar. Yea, the salt water gar in Va were very large and vicious. Here the big ones are from the trinity river basin.

[PB234]

www.youtube.com/watch?v=faZqIdGi87k

A link to just one fo the cooking Asian Carp videos on YouTube. Looks easy, good and probably an easy fish to harvest. If I had access to them I would be cooking determining the best way to make this fish.

[Tripplebeards]

I’m sure if you put a pretty good bounty on them the commercial fisherman would get rid of a lot as well

[richhodg66]

Milford is mostly a gravel based lake that the muskie love - as do northern. A sight feeders, they need the clear water. FIL moved to Lebanon so we fished Ol hickory before he passed. Never made it to Milford. He had 3 girls, none liked to fish so I 'got' the duty, love to fish but don't much eat any. The 'new' breed of asian carp we have is basically a farm fish for asia. The Viets I used to work with said they used them to clean the rice paddys and provide fertilizer. Kill off may have been from chems to clean out the water weeds (root killer) they use down here. So bad you are requires to wash and decontaminate you boat and motor when leaving the water. Also problem with the zebra mussels. Many states now require hard soled wading boots, no canvas boots either.
Here any bait minnow are to be dumped on the bank to die vs tossing back into the water as most are carp minnows. Same with gar. Yea, the salt water gar in Va were very large and vicious. Here the big ones are from the trinity river basin.

I lived in a house on the shoreline of Milford Lake 25 years, still own it. Never saw a pike of any type taken out of it. You must be confusing it with someplace else. Walleyes are about as close to pike as you're gonna find here.

[Winger Ed.]

have heard they are better eating than the common carp, with the way Americans eat, we just need to market it such that it's trendy and eco friendly to eat them and their populations will go away in no time.

In the Mississippi and Ohio rivers they are commercially netting out tons and tons of them.
They're processed and shipped frozen overseas mostly.

There is a few youtube videos of it.
Its amazing the quantities that are coming out and sustaining a business for it.

But, like roaches and mosquitos, there seems to be an endless supply.

[Johnch]

I am spoiled
As I live 10 miles from Lake Erie
5 miles from the Portage River
20 miles from the Maumee and Sandusky rivers
Spring the rivers have Walleye and White Bass runs
From Spring to fall we catch Channel Catfish in the rivers and Lake Erie
All year we catch walleye in Lake Erie
Spring and summer we catch White Bass in Lake Erie
Yellow Perch in Lake Erie
Yellow Bullhead , suckers , crappie , Drum and sunfish in most of the rivers and creeks

So carp are not on the top of the list
But right now the carp are spawning , so they are easy to harvest in large numbers
7 of us went out this afternoon to catch a bunch more from the marsh

A large number were given away to people we know in Toledo Ohio
I kept about 50 of the small ones for bait
I used my 8' cast net
But the ones I kept were 3" - 8"

I did have a real mess when I got several large carp in the net one time

I am going to try and catch that huge Large Mouth Bass I lost using them for bait
LOL I figure the large mouth bass eat them normally
So I should try free bait

John

[Winger Ed.]

I am going to try and catch that huge Large Mouth Bass I lost using them for bait
LOL I figure the large mouth bass eat them normally
So I should try free bait

I always understood large mouth bass to be more of an ambush predator.
That's why noisy and moving lures work so well.

Last year I did catch a 4 pound largemouth on a chicken gizzard in the boat dock.
It had swallowed the hook about 3/4 of the way down towards its exhaust pipe.

I try to throw all the largemouth back. They have a lot of tournaments here on the lake,
and in their own way, the bass bring in piles of money to the area, but I ate that one.

Here, cut up carp chunks do real real well for catfish,,,,,,,,, bass-- not so much.

Or, used as chum, all the mess from cleaning and chopping up carp also bring all the little bait fish---
which draw in the white bass and crappie.

[HogRider666]

The most carp I ever got was with my Brother chucky, we had some flood waters and when they dried up to little ponds we shot them with .22 and fed them to our pigs, couldn’t believe how big they were and how many. They are a pest here in Australia.

[swheeler]

I found this old picture of my daughter shooting carp for sport, something to do ..............

[seetrout]

That's awesome that your daughter is an outdoorswoman!

I have bowshot a few of them, but never kept any. I shot one with my .40S&W once while trout fishing. It was rolling in the shallows and I shot it through maybe 2" of water with a PMC starfire. I recovered the slug just under the skin on the far side, it looked just like a hibiscus flower.

[MT Gianni]

A former enforcement officer for the Idaho State Fish and Game said they had a free fish fry booth at the State Fair for many years. People would not believe they were eating carp.

[Little Oak]

Few folks eat carp where I'm from but the ones that do keep them alive for a few days in a large bath or similar full of clean, fresh running water. Apparently it washes all the 'mud flavour' out of them.

[trapper9260]

I old schooled a few about two weeks ago when I took a morning off from spring turkey hunting...







I have the two “yellow” carp brining right now getting ready to smoke. The buffalo are still froze up. I hit the right morning as they only jump about two to three days here each year. The buffalo normally spawn a few weeks earlier here but we had weird spring as usual so they spawned together. I quit spearing after these ones and just floated around watching...or I would have sunk the boat at the rate I kept going. I had a couple of dandies swim right under the dock yesterday cruising next to each other. They are still making ripples on top of the water at first light but not violently splashing anymore. That big buffalo almost flipped the canoe when loaded it. There was a one about a foot longer and one the same size it was mating with I could never catch up to. I’ll get them next season.

Anyone ever picked buffalo? I was going to give it a try but I’m wondering if it’s too oily?

I use to bow fish them when I was a kid. I just got tired of loosing arrows all the time and the line getting caught under my bear spools all the time so I started using a spear that my buddy gave me in the mid eighties. I believe it belonged to his grandpa. I had to sharpen up the tips this season. My spear defected off a couple of fish instead of going through them to let me know they were getting dull .

I pickle red horse and white suckers and hog nose sucker and no problem and for how I do it the Y bones are gone. It is like almost eating sweet pickles. I just make some more pickle fish this morning got them in the brim now. I am on my last jar of them . For the recipe I use it will work on all fish and the Y bones ones. It is simple also if any one like to have the recipe PM me because I will not catch this post all the time .

[veeman]

Whats the difference between a buffalo fish and a carp? Aren't they both bottom feeders? The same fish? Asking for myself.

[swheeler]

I don't actually know but looks like a Buffalo is a sucker fish. A friend sent me a picture of a Buffalo out of Fort Peck recently and it was huge. I had never actually heard of it before, but the head looks different than our carp?

[popper]

difference between a buffalo fish and a carp? Buffalo are native to the US, carp are not. Different species but yes, among many of the bottom feeders.