Carp Hunting

[Winger Ed.]

. I wouldn't try and fry carp...only smoke it.

Fried is OK, but you need to really-really trim and completely de-bone it.

Carp have a bad reputation from people who never ate it, or didn't process it right.
I clean & freeze enough to make a full load in the pressure cooker.
Run it for 90 minutes and the meat & 'Y' bones come out like canned sardines in texture.

Afterwards, I'll freeze the cooked carp and use it in recipes like a can of salmon.
If ya didn't know it was carp, you'd think it was canned salmon.

[Tripplebeards]

Here’s another batch...





It almost reminds me of some really good cod.


I soaked the back half in brine for smoking. If I would have known how good it was I would have been fried up as well.

[Tripplebeards]

I fried up a a few more pieces of Buffalo in virgin olive oil and butter uncoated. Turned out excellent. It stays firm and doesn’t fall apart. It really doesn't flake apart either. I’ll have to make some for fish tacos.

I placed the rear, smaller half of the fillet in my Lil Totem smoker at 9:30 p.m. last night and removed it at 7:30 this morning. I brined it in salt, brown, sugar, and Worcestershire for two days prior. I removed it from my brine, washed it off, and rubbed it down with brown sugar and sprinkled a little chili powder before putting it in my smoker. After all that smoking time it’s still as heavy as a brick and the thickest part of the belly feels soft under the dry surface crust. It must have still retained Quite a bit of moisture. I normally wait and remove carp when the fillets crack so hopefully this pice is done. It was in my smoker for 10 hours. It has zero smell to it and never had any “Carp” smell through the whole process. If there are any left over it won’t be good for coon bait. It’s like a smoked a walleye, bass, or cod. All white meat VS dark red oily and fishy smelling common grass carp. I could have speared hundreds of these but quit at three to test them. Next spring my 6’ chest freezer will be packed full if they are in the area again.



I just peeled off the skin and removed the mud line and gave it a try. Excellent!!! It doesn’t taste anything like smoked carp. It’s like I smoked a white meat game fish that’s really juicy.

[gumbo333]

I mentioned way back in a June post about 'scoring' carp before frying it. Nobody has ever scored a carp? Or knows what scoring is? Hummmmm

[Tripplebeards]

I don’t score my fish. I would help cook a thick piece of meat more even and quicker I’m sure. I just never felt the need to. The above piece is smoked. Almost 10 hours. All the outside that has a dried brown appearance tastes like smoked carp. I peel that off and use it for raccoon bait. The white meat under neath tastes like any other quality smoked fish.

[Drm50]

I have a nice Small Mouth streams within 6mi both north & south. A few years ago I was going to hit Captina creek at daylight. It was the 5th of July. Where I start wading there is a good size hole and an old submarine bridge. You have to walk down a path through a scrub woods to get to water.
Against the bank in the weeds was the biggest pile of fish I’ve ever seen. Carp, Suckers and Gar. Mostly gar. They had been taken with bows. I hate to see Gar killed wholesale. It’s the only big predator left in any numbers in local creeks. The Musky and Pickerel are native fish. I’ve not seen but one Pickerel in my life and that was 1955. One of first fish to go when pollution is present. Mines built at this time were cause of demise of many gamefish. There are records of people coming to Captina from surrounding area to harvest Jack Salmon ( walleye ) by the barrel for Salt Fish. The riffles were thick with them and they were gigged with pitchforks during the runs. The last mine is in process of shutting down. We will see if the creeks make a come back. The pollution that we have is silt covering the gravel and stone bottoms. It kills off bottom end of food chain and limits spawning grounds for game species. Goggle Captina Creek, Belmont Cnty, Ohio and it will show a lot of species including Waterdogs that are on endangered list.