What do you do with the fish after you bag them? I bring them home and use them for garden fertilizer. Lately, my favorite place to fish hunt, Des Moines River below Red Rock Dam, is loaded with bigheads and river carp and has two ethnic populations that fish there alot, Hispanic & Asian. The Asian's work in Des Moines (40 miles away) and the Hispanic's work at the meat packing plant in Marshalltown (60 miles away) and I give them away to them. On a trip not long ago, my nine yr. old daughter, Faith Adele would would take them up to the dam and give them to the Asian's and they would give here canned soda, treats, all kinds of food, (she's not a picky eater) in return for them. But anyway, would do you with them?
We eat some of the bigheads, buffs and grassies. Oh, and gar too. I used to smoke some common carp fillets in the Spring because they're good that way... but I didn't do any this year. We give some away. Bank fishermen, wildlife rehabilators... One year the Dept of Natural Resources would call and request a couple dozen carp at a time to trap turtles for their research. The local food pantry now wants us to supply them some fish... but they want them filleted and I honestly do not have the time right now to fillet a bunch of carp and buffs. ..Most of our fish end up in our garden. I just planted 200 pumpkin seeds and 60 butternut squash seeds. :D
