Hello all! Long time lurker, first post, because Omaha pointed me to this thread and it's actually something I have knowledge of.
Silver and bighead carp, commonly known as Asian carp are in fact very tasty. They are nothing like common carp. The meat is white and flaky. There is a strip of red meat that needs to be removed first, but is easy to do as you take the fillet off the skin.
The biggest issue is indeed the bones. You fillet silvers and bigheads like you would any other fish, but the filet will have Y bones in them. On fish under 10lbs, chunk out the fillet cutting in between every 3rd or 4th bone and cook as normal. Once cooked, the bones come out very easy. Either eat around them, or pull them out. These bones are much larger than most fish. For fish 10lbs and bigger, you can, with a bit of knife work, make the fillet boneless. It's hard to explain, but there are some great videos on Youtube by LSUagcenter that show how much better than I could try and describe.
Commercial fishing (netting) is the best way to harvest these fish. Second (and the method of my wife and I) is with a bow. It's a sobering site to see a school consisting of 100's of fish on the surface as the feed. Being filter feeders, they do tremendous damage to a fishery by destroying the food chain from the bottom up, if they are present in large numbers. Fortunately for flooded lakes and ponds that have been invaded by Asian carp by flooding along rivers, they will not have any significant reproduction as they moving water to spawn.
Last note, you do not want to be hit by an airborne silver carp, it hurts! I've only been hit a few times, but it's no fun at all. Oddly enough, in China, silver carp don't jump like they do here when boat traffic is present.
Alex
