WHAT IS A CARP ANYWAY?

 By

The Corpulent Carp Connosewer

A Carp is a species of fish that is found in abundance in the West Fork River that runs right through the center of downtown Weston, West Virginia, and in most streams, rivers, lakes and ponds throughout North America.

A member of the "Algae Eating" or "Sucker" genus, it is believed that the common carp originated in China, where many varieties were bred and cultivated as pets. Like its cousin the Goldfish, a Carp can live 10 or 15 years and weigh up to 80 pounds. The Chinese are thought to be the first to use the Carp as a food source after they came to realize the fish grew to large sizes quickly and required very little space in which to live. They began raising them in small ponds and cross breeding them, producing many exotic colors and shapes. This led to the development of 'ornamentals' or fish that are raised in ponds and displayed as pets. Miniature carp, goldfish and suckers are sometimes kept in home aquariums.

The Carp was introduced into Europe in the 12th century where they are still consumed as a food and fished for sport. The U.S. government in the 1800's thought the fish could be an important food source for a "growing" American population and imported them from Britain. However, instead of raising the Carp in ponds like the Chinese, the fish was stocked in Rivers throughout much of the United States and rapidly spread throughout the country in the 1880s and 1890s.

In the wild, the olive-brown common carp comes in three forms: the leather carp, with almost no scales; the mirror carp, with a few large scales; and the (West Fork River variety) scaled carp, which is covered with many large scales.

Carp prefer relatively warm waters, especially those that are shallow, and mud-bottomed. In the cold winter months they almost stop feeding, and stay near the bottom; in dry spells they may even burrow into the mud and survive for several weeks in that way. As bottom feeders they stir up mud and uproot vegetation, often driving out other fish; and, they can survive in stagnant pools of water or rivers so polluted by human sewage and industrial toxins that would kill most other species of fish. Because the Carp species live longer, larger amounts of toxins such as Mercury and PCB collect in the fishes fatty tissues. In many industrialized states there are advisories posted "warning" fishermen NOT to eat large specimens of the Carp and other such 'bottom feeding' fish. Weston however is no longer a highly industrialized community and has a relatively modern sewage treatment plant, and there are (to my knowledge) NOT any current advisories or warnings about eating West Fork River Carp.

There's an old adage that says: "You are what you eat", so for all the above reasons, the Carp is considered by most Americans to be a "dirty" fish and is only eaten by West Virginia HILLBILLIES and REDNECKS and other similar minorities of the U.S. population.

However, when raised in clear, clean water, a Carp can be very tasty. In the WILD the fish has a "strong" taste that tends to reflect the quality of the water it lives in---additionally it has a very "rough" texture and MANY bones, so Carp is NOT for the delicate palate. Some who have sampled the C-A-R-P have remarked that the fish would be more aptly named if the second and third letters of the name were reversed. There ARE ways of cooking a carp to make it a very attractive and tasty meal, and in future articles on these pages we'll go into that issue and even provide some recipes.

While the WESTON CARP TOURNAMENT is not necessarily a "catch and release" tournament, and you CAN keep, cook and eat the fish that you catch----we'd encourage you to put the "little" ones back, and tell you that the big ones aren't very tasty. The best 'eatin' carp are the small 3-to-5 pounders, but that size won't win any prizes in our tournament, so put'em back in and maybe they'll grow up to be prizewinners in a few more years. (I know some of you have a lot of fun playing "bean the carp"…but DON'T hit'em in the head with a baseball bat and leave'em on the bank to wilt in the sun. You WILL be charged with littering).

West Fork Carp average 10-to-15 pounds, but some 20-and-30-pounders have been landed. There are many stories of "legendary" GIANTS OF THE RIVER living near the Weston Sewage Treatment Plant, but to my knowledge NONE have ever been successfully netted. The largest Carp ever caught in West Virginia weighed 42 pounds and was taken out of the Stonecoal Lake Impoundment which is a tributary feeding into the West Fork River near Weston.

In the springtime the small creeks and streams that empty into the West Fork are "alive" with schools of carp swimming upstream to mate and spawn their eggs. Many a Weston resident has been awakened at night or early morning with the sounds of tail fins splashing and a big Bull Carp "barking" by puffing and blowing bubbles to attract females. Carp breed from May to July, and each female can lay up to 2-million eggs. Since they have no natural predators, (except other, bigger carp) and not many people fishing for them, carp will quickly take over and begin to dominate the waters it lives in, by eating or driving away many of the other fish species.

The carp is so numerous and under fished in North America that while it is still highly thought of as a GAME and FOOD fish in much of Europe, the carp is simply thought of as a pest in the United States. There are in fact many farming states in the American Midwest where carp are netted, poisoned or electrocuted by the hundreds of thousands and their bodies ground up into fertilizer.

NONE of those methods will be permitted during the Weston Carp Tournament.