Eating Carp

[TubeDude]

[cool][#0000ff]I think the reference to throwing perch up on the bank goes way back to the "olden days". Virtually all Utah anglers were strictly trout fishermen. Anything other than trout were unworthy of pursuit and were summarily dispatched and disposed of. That included bass, perch, white bass and of course catfish and carp. [/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]I first fished Utah waters in the early 1960's. I had gotten to know perch as a fine table fish as a kid in Idaho. They were not actively pursued up there but folks who caught them in larger sizes still kept and ate them. So you can imagine my surprise when I saw bank tanglers at Deer Creek cursing when they caught a perch and heaving it back up into the rocks. And they were chucking some perch that most Utah anglers would die for today.[/#0000ff]
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[#0000ff]It wasn't until Deer Creek first opened for ice fishing in the early 80's that more people actually fished for them and tried eating them. In those days you couldn't keep any trout you caught through the ice. There was a trout "season". So people kept the perch and discovered what they had been overlooking all those years.[/#0000ff]
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