Bighead Carp
Tuesday June 30, 2009
I caught a strange looking critter on the Tennessee River and found out it was a bighead carp. They get huge. At the time the 21 pound, 36 inch long fish was the biggest fish I had ever caught. Have you ever caught one? I hear they are good to eat. Tells us your bighead carp story in the comments section below.
picture (c) Ronnie Garrison
Comments
I caught a few “Bighead” carp! If they didn’t party so hard they wouldn’t wind up with a “big head” LOL!!!
Bighead Carp are supposed to be excellent fare on the table.
The silver carp, not the bighead, is the species that jumps when frightened, in my understanding.
They are both filter feeders and subsist on plankton. I believe the fish you caught was an accidental capture; the fluke going into its mouth as it was sucking in plankton was a fluke!
Did you take it home and eat it?
The bighead carp sure jumped in the Tennessee River when I was there. I definitely caught it accidently on purpose by letting the fluke drift with the current into its mouth. And since I was staying at a hotel on a week long tournament trip I did not keep it and try to eat it. If I caught another one and could I would give it a try.
It’s a bit hard to tell because the picture is fuzzy, but I think the fish in the picture is a silver carp. If it jumped, it definately was a silver carp, or possibly a hybrid. If you were seeing fish jumping, they were NOT bighead carp. You can barely make a bighead carp swim a bit into the air even when you hit them with an electrofishing rig.