Spearing suckers on the Stanislaus

its a pity the fish dish didnt turn out well.  I only had it once out of very clean water, and except for the bones, it was pretty good.    Well, you know where to go back for plenty more...

It was fine, it just wasn't cooked in a manner in which I could really judge it. 

Suckers != carp.  They aren't even in the same family.  Suckers tend to live more in cold, clean water than carp do.

Suckers spawn, or so I've been told, mid/late August into October...  In lakes that have them, they'll swim into the headwaters for spawning.
 
Trout are known to follow them to dine on the eggs....yeah, just like steelhead chasing salmon I guess.
 
The eggs are a dull pale orange color and fairly small.  The trout can be targeted with the appropriate egg patterns if you don't like the taste of the suckers.
 
Maybe the stripers you saw were waiting for the egg-eating party to begin...might be able to entice the stripers soon with the right egg patterns....

Eating carp! Never tried it and probably never will, ever since an episode at a lake near the Stanislaus a few years ago. Used to pal around with a guy who was into bowfishing. Well, he wanted to try for a carp on the surface about 30 yards away but had no intention of eating it if he caught it. I didn't think he should shoot it if he was just going to dump the carcass. Well...he hit it dead center. So I took the carcass home and had it smoked and then mailed it back to him 2 weeks later. One evening, I get a phone call and it's the bowhunter friend wanting to know what the hell that was that I sent him. He said it tasted like manure. I guess he didn't recognize the skin pattern and arrow hole that was still evident. Anyway, now I know what fish was feeding on.

lmao