Is half a carp better than none?

A lot of things turn up along the river, and they're not all pretty, but they're usually interesting. I was looking over the deck and I saw this part of a fish, about 14 inches long. With the huge scales and the barbel, I thought it might be a carp, but I asked Lee what he thought and he wrote:

"Not much left of this carp. Carp is considered a trash fish by Americans but is a delicacy in the rest of the world. They were brought over by the Germans. . . . When I was in Nepal, at Lake Pokara, some fisherman were bringing the king a large one they had caught for him in his lake. It has lots of little bristles attached to its bones. My mom knew how to prepare carp by boiling it and adding a gelatin, some carrots and celery and making what she thought was a treat. I hated it but enjoyed
catching carp in the sloughs around Astoria. They are slow moving but large."

Perhaps a sea lion didn't consider it trash. I wonder how it didn't get finished? But the crabs will have a field day later on. The water was kind of an icky color at that point, reflecting the overcast sky. But it changes color all day long, and it's usually pretty nice. By the way, this is the first carp I've seen here in the river. But then, I'm not out on boats very much.