Skinless Carp: Halls Environmental Survey N172, 2005
Entity Classification
| Aggressiveness | 1/5 | They are relatively slow-moving fish and are generally passive to wanderers. However, they possess sharp fin claws that they can use to defend themselves if need be. The resulting cuts could risk infection. |
|---|---|---|
| Frequency | 4/5 | Skinless Carp are prevalent fish, widespread across many levels/spaces of the Backrooms and Hydrosphere limsystems. They're highly adaptable to just about anywhere with freshwater and food. |
| Intelligence | 2/5 | Despite the unassuming appearance of these fish, they show signs of relative intelligence. Skinless Carp can learn from past experiences and tend to gain intelligence as they age -these fish can be trained to perform basic tasks and tricks. |
| Pritoria Index | 2.33/5 | Although this fish is widespread across both the Backrooms and Hydrosphere limsystems and has moderate intelligence, they typically pose little harm towards wanderers, unless provoked. |
fig 1.0 (A field journal sketch of the skinless carp)
Introduction
Howdy, fellow readers, my name's Harold Goddard, I’m a fisherman from the Bristleton Settlement. The UNCB has given me the exciting opportunity to provide my experience with fishing in The Halls to the Archives, for their 2005 environmental survey for Cartesian Valley sector N172/The Balgasan Reach! For my first entry of the survey, I should begin with the fish I most commonly spot on my trips, the skinless carp.
Skinless Carp Description And Biology
These fish are easily characterized by their lack of scales, exposed fleshy surfaces, and sharp claws. You'll know it's a skinless carp by its milky, uncanny eyes. I personally get the willies when I look at them, on occasion; all sunken and pale, perhaps an adaptation to the dimly lit environment of the inner wetlands. Whatever the reason, they sometimes look cold and lifeless, despite being alive and well.
Many of them live inside the Carpeted Wetland’s central lake, but I also tend to find them moving between shallow pools in the Brambleroot forests and mud flats. I’ll be clambering around the brambles or wading through the mudflats, and see the fish crawling around those mucky carpeted floors, like drunkards in a deep stupor. They're definitely easiest to catch in that state. Pick up a spear or splintered board and stick em' from a distance, like stabbin’ fish in a barrel, ha.
Though if you or some other hungry critter doesn't hunt them in such a vulnerable position, they can survive without water for extended periods of time by rapidly regenerating their oxygen-depleted cells, while using their sharp fin spines as traction claws to drag their way between pools of water or isolated ponds that other fish their size would have a hard time getting to. The koipecca wrasse, the fish that tend to bodyguard these carp, are oftentimes seen in a dormant state with their beaks clinging onto the dorsal spines and caudal rays of the carp, only reawakening when the carp returns to the water.
The carp also have to shut off parts of their brains and nonessential organs during their voyage onto dry land, so they can be easily disoriented and eaten; a price to pay for traveling where many fish can't. Many hungry beasts, from packs of Hounds to hordes of Deathrats, are known to snack on unlucky carp, though I’m sure the most well known example of Skinless Carp predation are the seasonal masses of carpet bears which migrate towards the Carpeted Wetlands, following the Hall Trekker herds, to reproduce and gorge themselves on the fish -along with other flora and fauna of the swamp-, in an event comparable to the salmon runs from the Baseline realm.
However, the carp have adapted against predation from terrestrial entities by making their eggs highly resistant to the digestive tract, so the larval carp can be dispersed to new locations by animal droppings; a bit nasty, but allows for the carp to be found most anywhere with water, making them such an important fish to feed our families with. If any readers hunt a carp on land and find eggs inside when gutting the fish, I assure you to do your part and release the eggs back into the water, so they have the best chance of survival. Although, it would be important to note that Skinless Carp only thrive in freshwater, and will avoid bodies of saltwater, as the excess salt fries the carp’s exposed muscles and nerves, making their bodies rapidly thrash and twitch, they don't last long like that.
In freshwater, the skinless carp is more in its element, they have a broad diet, eating just about anything that can fit in their mouths, from algae to weeds, bugs, and smaller baitfish. Thankfully, they don't get bigger than a meter, or they’d possibly see us and our waterfowl-hunting hounds as meals. Though the koipecca wrasses that stick around the carp are highly territorial and will dart towards any larger creatures with their sharp beaks, one of the many reasons to avoid swimming in the Hall’s waters if possible.
On the topic of those wrasse, they are an essential part of the carp’s hygiene. The skinless carp has no scales or skin on its torso shielding its flesh from the swamp water, and while the carp may have multiple adaptations against parasites and disease, such as their flesh regenerative abilities and a thick antibacterial slime coating, parasitic worms and arthropods can still tunnel their way through the fish’s defenses. The koipecca wrasses use their long, thin beaked teeth to pick out the pests from the carp’s flesh with careful precision.
Fishing Skinless Carp
It's harder to catch a carp in the water than on land, since they stick to the lake-bed, hiding in the silt and foraging within the muck. Spearfishing isn't recommended in these conditions, but if you're using a rod, you'll find luck with a variety of bait.
Personally, for bait, I like to use the house geckos I find around my Pa's farmhouse or small strips of jerky made from the skitter vermin which try to sneak their way into our grain cellar; the carp love it! For the rod, I use any small stones or bones I can find as a sinker weight, so the bait can reach the bottom, where the carp like to lurk.
When the carp take a bite, the larger carp are a bit of a challenge to reel up due to the weight, but generally their more sluggish swimming makes the carp easier to reel in than many other fishes found in the Wetlands. However, notable risks to keep in mind when reeling up the carp for yourselves are that these carp also use their long fin spines as sharp claws, which can cause deep lacerations that could easily become infected in the swampland. In my youth, I was a bit too careless when trying to take the carp off the hook, and got the nastiest cuts on my arm, my Pa had to rush me back into town and had to buy so much deathmoth silkwater to clean out the wounds, it was so expensive and he was so pissed, learnt my lesson there, ha.
Once, I’d also seen a swarm of koipecca wrasse leap out of the water and latch their beaks onto the arms and snout of a small carpet bear who was trying to haul a skinless carp out of the water, and the bear ran off a hollerin'. Keep an eye out for those little buggers too, if you're standing too close to the shore when reeling in your catch.
Once you secure your catch, you could choose to gut the carp like your traditional fish, clean out the fish in boil-cleaned water -or a deathmoth silkwater rinse, if you're fancy-, and either cook, dry, salt, or pickle the meat to your liking.
Though, with the carp’s regenerative abilities, anglers have the special opportunity to try another method of harvesting the meat: if the carp is large enough, you can use a blade -be it bone, flint, or sharpened plywood- to make three cuts in a triangular formation on each side of the fish’s body to get two, inch-thick, slabs of meat; release the carp back into the water, and in the course of a few weeks the carp may fully regenerate the missing muscle tissue for you to harvest again another time, if that fish’s still out there surviving the elements.
Skinless Carp Aquaculture
I know there's a settlement, The Helech Wallow, a small ways away from my town, in the fern tree groves closer to the Wetland’s Cartesian point. I have some good angler friends there. Their town takes advantage of the carp’s abilities and actually farms the carp in a neat aquaculture setup: they’ll dig out multiple large trenches into the carpet terra, fill them up with water, seed the trench beds with vegetation, and stock those trenches with carp. Then they'll sort the carp into different trenches, based on age, size, and for the adult fish whether their meat’s been harvested or not. I’ve been told by the fine folks who maintain the trenches that the little carp fry love hiding in the aquatic weeds while the older carp love munching on those same weeds, so the different aged carp have to be separated.
I’ve been told that, along with the weeds, they usually give the carp fishfeed composed of ground vermin meat, wild seeds, amber wheat grain, and dried mushrooms. Whenever the fish get sick, they also have a trench stocked with Koipecca wrasse, so they can pick them clean of parasites; albeit, everybody's a bit nervous whenever it's their task to carefully lower or lift the carp out of that trench.
Once the carp grow to be about a year and a half old, they're old enough to have their meat harvested in the same incision method mentioned earlier, but they'll also wrap the fishes wounds in a deathmoth silk bandage so their cuts can be cleaned and reduce infection. When the carp grows to be three years old, they're mature enough to reproduce and provide a new generation of carp.
If you're used to farming other livestock like rodents, geckos, slug slimes, poultry, boar, or ibex, waiting over a year for meat, and over three years for offspring may sound like quite the long time investment for the unpredictable environment of The Backrooms, but in protection from wild predatory entities these fish can live for decades, with adults producing two slabs of meat each, every few weeks. That's quite a reliable source of meat, once you have an established stock.
In addition, while the folks at Helech Wallow don't do this, there are other settlements who live near the Wetland's shoreline who are known to dig out expansive shallow pits into muddy carpet terra, letting the wetland waters flood in, then seeding the paddies with rice and cattails. Along with the rice and reed crops, rice paddy farmers will stock the waters with skinless carp, koipecca wrasse, freshwater shrimp, mussels, snails, and a wide variety of other small fishes, such as gold-dashed ricefish, wall-stripe danios, mosquito slurper fish, silvernose Hall minnows, and hairy halfbeaks.
The various fish benefit the rice and reed crops by providing them nutrients, in the form of fish waste. The fish also help with lowering the amounts of competing weeds, choking algae, and pest insects present in the paddies, by foraging around in the flooded fields. This setup also benefits the paddy farmers, as their field of rice and cattail crops also double as a pond to harvest fish and shellfish in, giving a compact plot of farmland which can produce a complete and varied diet, a valuable asset in these Halls.
Domesticated Skinless Carp, Glowing Koi
The skinless carp does have additional economic value outside of its regenerative meat, antibacterial slime coating, and aquatic agricultural benefits; Mostly practiced in long-lived and highly established cities, the carp have been domesticated into a subspecies, the glowing koi. Although while under well-lit areas, the glowing koi looks much like a standard skinless carp, in darkness they can produce a large variety of vibrant glowing colors and patterns. This is possible from selectively breeding carp that can grow specific arrangements of bioluminescent bacterial mats inside their slime coating.
Many cities in the Halls practice annual festivals, for surviving another circuition, within the many festivities includes The Glow Show, where families surround a large pool and release large numbers of glowing koi -along with shimmertail guppies- into the water; the room’s lights dim, in the darkness masses of fish swirl around in a mesmerizing light show of shifting colors and patterns. All the while, incense smoke wafts through the air, performers beat on drums made of skitter hide, and blow flutes made of pigeon bone; a long-lived tradition to bring safety and luck towards the colony's people, and to keep the monstrous entities at bay. It's a lovely experience that I had the pleasure of participating in once, with my youngest son, though I imagine it's a more common experience for the city folk among us.
Tanks and ponds with smaller koi are also relatively common sights in Hall city buildings, since a lot of the city folk see owning the fish as a wealthy status symbol. Even as a rural man, I can definitely understand that point of view, as they truly are beautiful fish. Interestingly, these Glowing Koi are highly trainable and can recognize faces. These fish can gain trust with their caretakers, and by their social nature the koi will reassure their peers to trust that person too.
Well-trained glowing koi can be taught to perform fun tricks, like fetching a ball, leaping out of the water through a hoop, or climbing onto objects with their fin spines. Folks who work in the city trading centers or restaurant buildings sometimes perform their koi for families passing by, in hopes of grabbing their attention, convincing the parents to go buy some of their wares while the lil’ ones get to observe the fish, under the watchful supervision of the shop’s staff; the kids love it!
Conclusion
To conclude, the skinless carp is an essential and prevalent fish present in Cartesian Valley sector N172/The Balgasan Reach, and many other valley sectors across the Halls. Not to mention, the documented reports of other limspaces across the Backrooms limsystem, where the fish either naturally reside or had been introduced into, such as Boundless Retail, Bloodpool Catwalks, and The Fields of Eternity. I've also recently been informed that these fish had even been discovered across the Crater Sea, living in the flood plains of the Hydrosphere limsystem's Thunder Forest, which is honestly quite exciting! Stay tuned, as I’m eager to submit more environmental surveys of the fish I’ve encountered here. Remember, there's always more fish in the sea of carpet!