It was 8 a.m. when we climbed down the 60-foot embankment to the Merrimack River in Manchester. The sun was already hot in the sky and the water was low and calm. We were in search of common carp (Cyprinus carpio), fish number 39 in our quest to catch and eat every kind of freshwater fish in New Hampshire. Catch-M-All fans will remember we’ve been chasing carp for over a year. Today, failure would not be an option. Carpe Diem, Carpe Carp! It was time to bag our fish!

Originally from Asia, the carp is New Hampshire’s largest species of minnow. For centuries people stocked the big and meaty fish in new places, so now it is found on every continent except Antarctica. Fisheries managers released them in New Hampshire in the late 1800s to replace dwindling shad and herring fisheries in the Merrimack and Connecticut rivers. It was believed that the carp would be welcomed as a familiar food fish by the growing immigrant population. The fish did well, but the people were not impressed.

Carp are considered invasive species because they are prolific and eat like pigs. Carp are omnivores and eat anything they can suck off the bottom of a pond or river. They root around in the mud and tear up native plants to find food. A thriving carp population can radically change a habitat and displace native fish.

But carp in the Merrimack also got a raw deal. As cities grew along the river, so did the pollution from factories and sewage plants, making the water toxic for New Hampshire fish that like clear, clean, cool water. Carp, on the other hand, can tolerate pollution better, so they flourished. Many people have falsely accused carp for killing salmon, shad and herring. To make matters worse, the bad water made the carp taste bad, so people did not even want to catch them. Now that the river is getting cleaner, attitudes may change.

While we prepared our gear, we tossed handfuls of canned sweet corn into the river to get the carp in an eating mood. Immediately we noticed fish moving closer, and our hopes began to rise. We pulled crust from a slice of bread and drizzled it with vanilla extract before squishing it around a hook to form an acorn-sized ball. We cast the ball 20 feet out and loosened the drag on the reel to let the line pull out freely. We’ve been told carp will spit out bait if they detect any resistance. We rested the rods on an old log and passed the time by wondering if carp are called koi because they are so shy.

Not only did we need to catch a carp, but we had to eat one, too. The problem was that we couldn’t find anyone locally who would admit eating carp. Even our friends who are avid carp anglers scowled when we asked their favorite recipe. We instead turned to a recent favorite book of ours, “Eating Aliens” by Jackson Landers. Traveling the country eating invasive species, Landers reports that he fed carp fishsticks to his kids, and they never knew the difference. Landers believes a market for invasive species like carp would easily diminish their numbers without government intervention.

Suddenly we heard whrrzzzZZZzzzZZZz!—the beautiful music a reel makes as a fish strips out line. Clay grabbed the rod and watched the line rocket off the spool even faster. He tightened the drag and set the hook. “Holy carp, fish on!”

This fish was not going to come in easily. Clay had to carefully play the fish so the eight-pound line wouldn’t snap under the strain. The fish made several strong runs and put an impressive bend in Clay’s vintage aluminum rod. But then it began to tire and, like an expert carp pilot, Clay steered the fish into the shallows. Reaching his hand into the gills, Clay lifted the hefty fish from the river. It was a considerable fish of about 15 pounds that nearly pulled Clay off balance and into the drink.

With this brute in hand, we wondered if a New Hampshire state record exceeding 33 pounds was waiting for us under the surface. We laughed at the thought of anglers chasing puny bass and weakling trout, when schools of large carp were swimming unmolested in the Merrimack. 

We vowed to return once our quest was complete to tangle with the mighty carp again. At the car, Clay dug in his fishing bag and laughed. “I only have a two-inch paring knife! This will be fun.” After hacking through the quarter-sized scales, he gouged out several pounds of pink meat and then declared the poor fish done. We buried the carcass on the shore where it would eventually decompose and nourish the river from which it came.

Once in the kitchen, we wanted to honor the largest fish we’ve caught in our quest. After a brief Internet search, we learned that carp is commonly used in gefilte fish, a popular Passover meal. Neither of us had eaten or even seen gefilte fish, but we thought it must be pretty good to be so popular. Then we found that most gefilte fish recipes call for using the fish carcass and head to make a complimentary fish jelly. This did not bolster our confidence in the dish, but thankfully, we did not have the carcass.

We left out the jelly and, in the end, we thought we made a nice approximation of gefilte fish garnished with horseradish sauce. It tasted kind of like a fishy meatloaf. We did not hate it, and it confirmed our experience that minnows were pretty good eats.

Check out our mock gefilte fish recipe at www.catch-m-all.com. To follow our adventures or ask us questions, meet us on Facebook or our website.