>>2617225My grandma used to make really good baked carp. A lot of the world eats the shit out of them. The only reason they're in the US is because Europeans introduced them as food stock, and environment stabilizers. Why do you kill them? If they're common carp they've been naturalized for over 200 years. In fact most North American large species Sucker fish that satisfied that niche before, have died from over fishing, over competition with introduced game species, etc. The common carp literally hold up the backbone of most North American freshwater ecosystems allowing fish like bass and bluegill and catfish to live. If you don't have carp, you will directly negatively impact your ecosystem and the game fish you're trying to catch. Now if there's some local carp population epidemic or something. Like your local DNR wants you to kill them that's fine then. But when my lake got drained, the only fish species that our state removed from the lake, then reintroduced back into the lake when it was filled, was common carp. They literally terraform the lake bed into habitable substrate other fish can nest and live in. Asian carp are a totally different story. Kill those mofos. But common carp and mirror carp are homies. Even if you feel like you see a lot of them. They 100% are not competing for the same food source as your target species. It's almost always better to put them back.
