Before filleting, you may wish to remove eggs and innards to make it less messy.

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1 1 By TubeDude Carp are fun to catch unless you accidentally foul hook one while fishing for other species on light tackle. Then they might take a bit of effort to get them in and recover your valuable lure. That wastes precious time you could be casting for the good guys. But it is surprising how many anglers now deliberately fish for carp either just for sport or to use as bait. Once you have a carp subdued it helps to know what to do in order to convert it to good bait for catfish, burbot, or whatever other species you plan to target. Many species will cheerfully chomp on a carp cutlet. However, if you freeze the carp meat for future use you will have better success if you process it properly to preserve as much natural flavor as possible and to avoid freezer burn. Some bank tanglin catfish chasers try to catch a carp as quickly as possible when they first hit the water. Then they rock the carp to sleep with a big rock and just hack hunks of meat off their prize as they need it for rebaiting. That works. It is hard to beat good fresh bait of any kind and that seems to be especially true for carp meat. However, if you care for it right, and freeze it right, it will still be good for months. If you keep a carp or two to take home and freeze for bait later, treat them as you would a fish you planned to eat. Keep it alive in the live well or on a stringer. They are hardy and are easy to keep alive. If you can t keep it alive, don t just leave it lying in the sun until you are ready to go. At the very least you should cover it in the shade. Better yet is to plop in in the ice chest. Wrapping it in a plastic bag to avoid sliming the other contents of the cooler is also a good idea. Keeping it cool will produce a better bait product that will be more appealing to your targeted species later. One preliminary word of advice about processing carp for bait. Try to find a fish cleaning station or at least set up a spot outside your home where you can control the fishy fallout. Cutting up a carp is akin to butchering a hog. Maybe worse. Lots of blood and scales to deal with even in a best case situation. Some who keep carp for bait just hack it up into chunks and freeze it. That s okay, as long as other fish eat it when thawed and presented as bait later. The next level of bait prep is to scale the carp first and then fillet it leaving the skin intact. That also works fine and with the skin left on you will seldom lose a bait to a sneaky fish. In fact, when you want to remove skin-on carp meat from your hook you just about need dynamite. I have used carp meat for catfish bait for decades. I have found that it is tough enough by itself that I don t have to leave the skin on to keep the bait on the hook. Before filleting, you may wish to remove eggs and innards to make it less messy.

2 2 Carp fillets skinned. Some carp meat is much darker than others. Slicing out the rib cage is optional. But removing the ribs eliminates the potential for puncturing the plastic bags in which you freeze the carp meat. Carp fillet with rib bones removed.

3 3 Carp fillet crosscut into strips Carp fillet cut into larger chunks. Pile of carp chunks and strips ready for packaging and freezing

4 4 Make up trip-sized packages for the freezer. Do not rinse in water but do add a small amount of water and squeeze out excess to remove all air. This helps prevent freezer burn spots. Freeze in a protective box to prevent packages from being damaged in the freezer. Also a good idea to label them for contents and date. Thaw your bait slowly a day ahead of a trip. Don t put it in warm water or the microwave. When using it, you can fish whole strips or chunks or cut them into smaller pieces.

5 5 A half of a carp strip, on a size1/0 hook with bling beads. It usually works best to hook the bait through one end with the hook point exposed. Cats love carp meat the fresher the better. But properly prepared and frozen works well too. Other species like carp meat too. In Utah Lake you will also catch white bass, bullheads and even walleyes on it.