Truth is that I fish more for carp than I do trout. I love the trout fishing, but that is about two hours away from my home. The carp fishing is about 4 minutes from the house. I chase them with a passion. I had a friend that I work with ask me what I was doing with them. I told him that I released them all. Truth is if I am going to catch an 8" brookie and release it or catch a 5 pound carp and release it, I am all for "the drug is the tug". My buddy says that he would like to go with and then we can have a big carp feed. He prepared them the same way that Hide Hunter did, by scalling and then scoring, dipping in a batter and deep frying. They were good.

I keep thinking of all of the hungry people out there in shelters etc. I would never consider providing them with a delicate resource like giving them trout to eat, but if I removed all of the carp that I catch in a single year from our local river, well over a 100 fish per year, it would make no difference in their population numbers. I often thought that some people would think that I was trying to give away to the homeless something that was sub par somehow. Yeah, feed the homeless guy carp while you eat walleye or whatever. I'm a little gun shy about even asking if they would accept the fish. Probably some state mucky muck would save that they are not state inspected so you can't feed them to the homeless. I could provide the local shelter with a grand amount of fresh protein and not damage the fish population like you could with even giving away bluegills. Too bad it will never become reality, but I think about it often. I know that some butchers take venison donations and then pass those along. I will have to make some phone calls.