An angler in France has made quite a catch.
The orange koi carp weighs 30lb – the same as an average three-year-old girl – and is thought to be one of the largest of its kind ever captured.
It took Raphael Biagini ten minutes to reel the creature out of a lake in the south of France – moments after fellow anglers told him they had spent six years trying to snare the legendary ‘giant goldfish’.
There’s more at the link.
That’s incredible! To think that the little goldfish I used to raise in our garden pond as a child can grow to that size! I wonder if it’s edible?
Peter
Just because you can eat it, doesn't mean you should.
Everything's edible if you're hungry enough. Pretty sure they're not toxic to humans, so why not?
Carpfishing is a big thing in Europe, and it's more or less exclusively catch and release, at least at the bigger carp venues.
One of the reason the fish grows so big and fat is the massive amount of feeding anglers do to make them stay in the area where they fish. Anglers generally use specifically made high nutrition, high fat, high protein content baits, and use lots of it to draw the fish into the area. They all try to use bait that's more attractive for the fish than the rest of the anglers at the same lake, and they generally use a lot. In the big carp venues of France, using 50lbs of bait as free offerings isn't unheard of, and there's lots of anglers fishing there at any time.
This means that lots of the carp feed almost exclusively on bait, and dont spend much energy in searching for other food. The result is an explosion in size of the fish, and a change in shape from the more torpedo like fish to fish with a huge gut. Since size matters to these anglers it's not something they really object to.
One more thing. It might sound like it would be easy to catch a fish that's feeding exclusively on what you have as a hookbait, but these carp have learned how to distinguish a free offering from one that has a hook attached. This makes it necessary to use very advanced tackle rigs to trick them.
Then again, a few carp have learned that being pulled out of the water once in a while isn't such a bad deal, and will go like vaccum cleaners over the baited area. They can be caught several times in a session, once released they go right back out and start eating again. 🙂
In Wisconsin, carp are considered to be 'junk fish' not worthy of eating.
Carp are not considered game fish in Texas. The local bowfishermen were upset that some people were trying to get them reclassified as game fish.
Are there no real fish left in Europe?
MechAg94
Goldfish are "just carp." When they get large enough the myriad of small bones cease to be a problem so yes, they are edible.
They taste much better with a bit of help. Some Louisiana hot sauce or some such to give it some taste.
Stranger