Clearly, you didn’t grow up in the rural south, eating fish out of stagnant ponds, as I did … or maybe you did.
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I also have it on excellent authority that carp never die of natural causes.
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Exactly. Where I’m from carp ponds have been a staple food source since the Middle Ages. Monks loved to keep them because you can treat them like any other agricultural resource, but unlike other livestock you can eat them on the many, many fast days as well.
I’m not a huge fan but fried or deep fried carp from a properly managed pond isn’t bad.
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Carp x Goldfish hybrid grow to mind bending sizes. Buddy of mine sent me a picture of one in a local creek which was getting on towards 15-20 pounds.
So sort of above average size for a regular Carp.
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But there is a pretty good virus that cleans them right out.
Removal of ones right shoe is the customary salute to a dead wild goldfish.
Please remember this forever.
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Am I misremembering, or is the bad taste in Carp geosmin? Lovely smell, taste not so much. It’s also why ceviche exists, since that will get rid of the taste of dirt…
spent many days on the rural side of the south… i simply don’t care for fish.
it’s probably due to having to swim out, at the asscrack of dawn, and retrieve the night’s catch from the trotline to prep for cooking. lots of fish, squirrels, and dove during summers with dad… money was strictly for beer.
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One of these trout got so big, they made it a duke!
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Convert a spare room into a goldfisharium? 
In the past, carp have survived Finnish winters, but haven’t been able to reproduce here (I have no idea if the climate change has changed that), so in the past, people have seeded carp into suitable muddy lakes, let them grow, and then fished them out. Smoked carp is pretty good.
We have a pond in our garden and it’s stocked with goldfish we “rescued” from a pet shop - they were designated as “feeder fish” so they were cheaper than koi. A few of them are almost 20 years old and about 10-12 inches in length.
The pond had to be dug deeper because in the first winter the original “team fish” turned in fish-cicles and we had to start again - but bringing the fish inside in an aquarium for the winter months was a hassle - so - Teh Missus dug the pond down pretty much the water level in our neighbourhood, relined the whole thing and now the fish can winter in the pond. They settle down to the bottom and just snooze - we have to keep a bubbler going to maintain a hole in the ice so gases can exchange - but they survive.
And thrive.
And reproduce.
Every year we get more of these little critters and they have to be culled because there’s some kind of equation for gallons-to-fish-inches that my wife explained to me once and I promptly forgot. The older ones recognize me (which is weird) and will play with my fingers when I reach into the water. The younger ones are the ones who get scooped out by Teh Missus and ladled into the garden beds.
Cruel? Probably - but the other fish benefit.
Yeah - they get pretty big.
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It’s illegal to use them as bait in my state - too much risk of a breeding pair jumping off the hook and surviving.
I’ve seen farmers put them in livestock water containers to eat mosquito larva. Seems like a eco-friendly solution to me.
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Crappie taste bad?? Where are you catching your crappie? I am not even a big fish fan, but I’ve eaten lots of crappie and they are pretty good.
And they have a lot of bones, making them a pain in the ass to clean.
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The cooking guide produced by my state game and fish office claimed that the “muddy” taste in carp was due to the algae in their diet. It suggested that carp is best in the winter and spring because algae isn’t “blooming” at those times and the improved water quality ameliorates any taste issues.
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I saw a huge goldfish that someone had pulled from the Missouri river just a couple weeks ago.
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I spent many summers fishing with my grandfather way back in the day. I never enjoyed eating bream and crappie – too many little bones. But I’ve always liked catfish. Mainly because it doesn’t taste like “fish.”
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It’s not just Crappie… all fish tastes like horrid ass to me… unless it is in stick form and tastes like bread and ketchup. although i did love Mrs Paul’s Fish Kabobs when i was young… but i think that was because they tasted like bread and tartar sauce.
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I get it. Not a big fish fan myself. Certainly the environment can make it taste more fishy than others. But the crappie my dad catch are pretty good.
My least favorite part of this whole thing is the huge number of comments on the original tweet asking people not to release goldfish in public waters that boil down to “well where are we supposed to release them?” uhhh, they’re pets. Don’t release them. Would you ask that of a dog or a cat? NO! They’re not wild animals, never release them.
We ended up with a tank full of gold fish. We used them to clean up some mosquito larvae filled water as a fun thing for the kids, and were planning on putting them in my parent’s outdoor pond. However, it came out that my parents had lost several batches of fish trying to get them to live in the pond, and at that point we had named the fish… so no chance of putting them in a bad environment where they were guaranteed to die. Now they’re quite big and beautiful and healthy in a tank that is way too much work. Man they’re messy fish.
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