City Kids & Mud Carp

Fishing was something that I always enjoyed as a kid. I would hit the local fishing spots with my friends and we would cast our lines as far as we could in hopes of landing the big one. In reality, our bounty would almost always consist of no more than a small white perch or catfish. But nonetheless, the uncertainty of what was on the other end of that line always brought a certain degree of excitement.

I can recall one of my buddies (I'll call him Steve) discovering a new fishing hole near one of the local expressways (we were city kids). He told us if we wanted the experience of catching a big fish, this was the place to go. What he didn't tell us was that we'd be fishing for the infamous mud carp. Actually, the carp in not a bad looking fish, but I'm told that they taste really nasty (no, I've never eaten one). The first thing that I learned about carp fishing was that you didn't use traditional bait such as worms or grass shrimp. You had to use "doughballs", which we made with shredded wheat and thyme. I'm not sure what the carp saw in this concoction, but they did indeed like it.

Within a few seconds of your line hitting the water, the carp was hitting the doughball. A quick tug of the rod was all it took to set the hook. This is when I learned that mud carp were lazy. What's it like to reel in a mud carp, you ask? Picture the police showing up at a protest. You know how the protesters go limp and the cops have to drag them over to the police car? Well, that's what it feels like when you're dealing with a carp. In a nutshell, they're uncooperative.

Anyway, we would reel in several carp and secure them at the waters edge with a stringer to keep them alive. At the end of the day, Steve and I would load the large fish into a metal shopping cart. We would push the cart through the busy streets of the neighborhood as passing cars would yell obscenities and throw Pepsi cans and half-drunken Slurpees at us. We didn't really care, we had our eye on the prize. You see, we would ultimately wind up at one of the nearby rowhouses to meet our "buyer". I can't remember his name, but there was this guy who, for some unknown reason, loved carp. He would give us a dollar a piece for them. He was happy and we were happy. But I must admit, the thought of this guy eating these things turned my stomach. Understand, we grew up in an industrial neighborhood, so there's no telling what kind of toxic run-off or pollutants were in those local waters. And of course, all of this crap wound up in the local seafood. But who were we to judge, we were just businessmen!

Well, one time we brought our day's catch to the guy. But he expectantly said that he didn't want them. This really threw us for a loop. It's not like we had a back-up buyer. In fact, I don't think we could have given these fish away for free to anyone else. And there was no way we were going to walk these things a mile back to the water and risk getting pelted with another Slurpee. So, Steve being the clever one, came up with an impromptu plan.......

As we pushed the cart (which was really starting to smell by now) through one of the back alleys, Steve  starts tossing the fish up onto people's garage roofs! Keep in mind that most the roofs were flat, so once the fish were up there, it was hard to see from the ground. Steve looked like the local paperboy tossing the evening news up on the front lawn. Except, instead of a light newspaper, he was tossing large fish up on garage roofs.

Actually, I really didn't think it was such a good idea. But Steve was the experienced fisherman, and I figured he knew how to dispose of rotting mud carp better than me. Who was I to argue? He figured if he spread the fish out enough, the birds and insects would dispose of them before anyone even noticed. As a twelve year old, this actually sounded quite reasonable to me....

As we made our way towards the end of the alley, we had one more fish but no more garages. But there was a swimming pool. So, right on cue, Steve hurls the two-foot fish over the fence and into the pristine water. We had assumed all of the fish were dead by now but amazingly, this one sprung to life and began to swim around the pool. If the line hadn't been crossed yet, it certainly had been now. My buddy advised me to keep quiet about everything and then we parted ways.

Well, the next day, there was a noticeable stench in the alley as the fish baked on the rooftops in the 90 degree heat. By the second day there were flies all over the place and people were getting curious. Even though I didn't actually do any of the tossing, I certainly didn't do anything to stop it. So understandably, I was a little nervous. Could I possibly get in trouble with the police over something like this? I kept visualizing getting thrown into a Baltimore City jail cell with a bunch of hardened criminals. One would inevitably ask, "So, what'd ya in for?" Can you imagine me explaining that I'm "in for" being an accomplice in a mass carp throwing incident? If that wouldn't set me up for an ass kicking, I don't know what would.

At the very least, if  it was discovered that I had anything to do with this, it surely meant an ass-whooping from my Dad. (Keep in mind that this was back in the 70's, in a time where parents were still allowed to discipline their kids.) Nonetheless, since I was never fond of getting my ass kicked, I kept quiet and prayed that the flies and birds would invite all of their friends over for the rooftop fish fry.

Well, before long, one of the neighbors put two and two together and figured out who flung the fish. Actually, it wasn't really that hard because Steve left a bunch of crab nets and fishing gear out in his back yard. From what I recall, he got grounded for a period of time by his parents. But to his credit, he never implicated me. That's the way things were back then. And in return, I won't reveal Steve's true identity. Hell, I have no idea what the statute of limitations is on something like carp tossing! So, I've probably already said too much!

After that episode, I pretty much practiced the "catch and release" method of fishing. And, for some crazy reason, I never had the desire to fish for another mud carp....

kw