This Is what it Looks like when you eat Zebra Mussels

[MoCarp]

Big Carp can feed heavy on the little clams...their mouths can be extremely tough so using very sharp hooks are a must

[jdmidwest]

So, did you kill the fish just to see what it had been eating?  Looks like an awful rough cut for someone wanting to preserve meat for eating.

[MoCarp]

13 minutes ago, jdmidwest said:

So, did you kill the fish just to see what it had been eating?  Looks like an awful rough cut for someone wanting to preserve meat for eating.

I didn't kill the fish, its a borrowed pic...somewhere I have a pic of carp poop on a mat with crushed zebra shells in it..and a bass pic with a plastic worm hanging out its bunghole

as far as fish cleaning skills, I have seen some godawful crappie butchering at Mutton on Stockton

[jdmidwest]

I just assumed that you knew for a fact that the carp were becoming a solution to the zebra mussel problem by first hand observation.  That's why I asked.

[MoCarp]

1 hour ago, jdmidwest said:

I just assumed that you knew for a fact that the carp were becoming a solution to the zebra mussel problem by first hand observation.  That's why I asked.

I have noticed that carp run larger in water with zebras ..blue cats also eat them as do many duck species..as far as a solution...I don't think thats the issue...it more of carp taking advantage of a food source...in some AZ lakes Redear sunfish have exploited them and has produced mammoth fish.....the places where the population of mussels exploded had lots of nitrate driven food....the great lakes were basically sewers and the zebras cleaned up the water so much so it had a positive impact on fish....will reducing or killing off the carp from a water have an impact? sure, but to what extent the mussels are suppressed to my knowledge has never been studied..it has been reported on this forum that zebras occur at great depths in bull shoals...if they are more prevalent at depth, the 2 questions are this A; is it because of wildly fluctuating water levels that we see in white river chain of lakes?...or B; that fish like Common Carp, Blue Catfish, Drum and Redears are able to effectively control numbers in the shallower depths these fish typically feed..the take on this is shellfish flavors in bait may be a good choice for cat/carp baits