I’m amazed at the fascination of Asians with Koi… It’s a Carp… Not real good eating, but it’s a food fish…
Cyprinus carpio or more specifically nishikigoi, are a group of fish that are ornamental varieties of domesticated common carp that are kept for decorative purposes in outdoor koi ponds or water gardens.
There’s a whole time sink if one is really interested HERE…
Ironically, and I didn’t know this, Carp (Koi) and Goldfish are related, and are both products of breeding starting 1000 years ago give or take by the Chinese…
There is a whole culture that surrounds this, and it’s a HUGE business apparently…
I’m sorry, but I like my fish deep fried (Catfish) or lightly seared (Tuna). Other than that, Bass and Trout are good too! 🙂
It probably took me 10 minutes of standing there to actually get a good picture without a hand, head or camera in the picture… Sigh…
Yes, water reflections are tricky when taking photos. I’m not much of a carp eater myself, but my understanding is that recipes are available that really punch it up. I’m a lazy cook and am not that brave yet though.
We here in IL are uniquely aware of this because Governor Quinn (now out of office, thank God.) gave a government loan to a business on the Illinois River (one of the few things I agree with that he did during his term) to expand their carp catching business and market them to China as “free range, clean American river water Asian Carp”.
The Chinese don’t want locally caught Asian carp because of the heavy metals in the rivers.
And Northern Pike is pretty good as well. Although a mess of pan fish (Bluegill, Sunfish, or Crappie) with homemade tartar sauce is excellent (but only if the fish was swimming not 30 minutes before the meal.).
My neighbor back in PA built a pond and stocked it with a variety of koi. The great blue herons thanked him. They liked their fish dinners.
Jim asked me to shoot the birds but I informed him the birds were federally protected, his fish were not.
KY sells lots of Asian carp to China as well.
Jenni and I did the Koi thing for a bit. We had some very pretty examples. Little suckers have personality too. When you’ve interacted with the brighter examples enough that they become tame, they can be quite entertaining.
I still miss our silly fish sometimes.
Don’t be koy, OldNFO. Tell us what you really think about carp.
I have always thought that koi were lazy fish – sort of the fish equivalent of a poodle. They swam around, accomplished nothing and you fed them. Not that they’re not decorative. I like a fish pond as well as the next guy — but still poodles.
You know Julius Caesar’s famous dictum: vini, vidi, vici – I came, I saw, I conquered. You may not remember his dad’s saying: vini, vidi, pesci – I came, I saw, I went fishing.
A Fraternity brother of mine’s Dad retired as a SCPO out of NSB Kings Bay. And promptly opened a fishing guide service in the flats and of shore.
There I learned just how good deep fried Reds or Snapper could be.
Given the capability of modern medical imaging technology I wonder how hard it would be to select for smaller (or missing) floating bones. That would be a very big deal for about a billion potential customers.
Carp or koi kind of creep me out. They work well if planted in the garden…as a fertilizer. All other fish are delicious. I especially like swordfish, trout, walleye, catfish, etc. And why do people get so many koi tattoos? It befuddles me.
Different strokes, etc.
It’s my understanding that in Poland, farm raised carp are smoked for holiday consumption.
Which end do you light?
My grandmother was part Indiana and Pennyslvania Dutch she would clean and pressure can carp. It tasted like canned Jack Mackerel.
j.r.- Yeah, good point…
Joe- Didn’t know that, and yep Bluegill and Crappie are good, if small… 🙂
Gerry- LOL, point! And I didn’t know KY sold them…
Michael- I should have known…LOL
CP- 😛
LL- LOL, I see what you mean… And good point!
Euripides- ROTF… GOOD ONE!
SPE- Oh yeah… they ARE good!
ERJ- Good question!
Fargo/WSF- They do work for that! But $60k for fertilizer???
Ed- Gah… you really DID go there didn’t you…:-)
Rick- Again, didn’t know that… sigh
It’s a Carp! Oh, don’t be all koi, you were thinking it.
C-90 LOL!