I recently heard the story about the Asian carp invasion, true or not - that's for you to decide, but, the story goes...it started near Jefferson City on a fish farm that was growing Asian Carp for table fare. The flooding of 1993 took the fish and allowed them to get into the Missouri River. They liked it, liked it ALOT.
I have had the opportunity to eat the Asian carp from the Missouri and it was very good. Now, I can not put it up there with salmon, but it certainly competes with LMB, panfish, and CC. In fact, I have had some pretty muddy catfish before and have yet to have any carp that should have been thrown back. The only downside is all the bones...one of these days I will pressure cook some and eat without the fear of choking.
EDIT: Aside from the cook's talent, the main thing to do is to cut the more yellow belly meat off and discard and some fish will have a blood vein that runs down the lateral line that should be removed as well.
Similar story I heard is that the source hatchery was in Arkansas. The original escapements occured back in the 1970's with low levels of natural reproduction occuring there after until the early 1990's when stars aligned and Bighead took off. Silver took of shortly their after. Ignoring Grass on this but they have been breeding since at least the 1980's where I have lived. The triploid rules on those came way too late. Black carp and Snakeheads will be in Missouri if not already present based on a stream biologist friend working for the MDC. They will be wild bred, not hatchery releases.
Aquaculture Cooperative Research / Extension Lincoln University of Missouri
