Do Carp Have Teeth? Carp Teeth Facts A Hidden Set Of Teeth

If you’ve ever caught a carp before then you probably thought that it was a toothless fish but carp have teeth hidden deep inside their throats. The type of teeth that carp have are pharyngeal teeth and the way that carp use them for eating is by crushing and grinding their food.

As you keep reading you will learn if carp can bite through fishing line, what pound test line to use for fishing them, and also what baits are great for attracting carp to get more bites from carp. In this article, I go in-depth on carp teeth and I talk about how sharp carp teeth are, how they look like, and how carp use their teeth to eat.

By the end of this article, you will learn all about carp teeth facts and helpful tips that you can use for catching carp.

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Do Carp Have Teeth?

Yes carp do have teeth but they don’t have teeth as most people would expect, the type of teeth that carp have are pharyngeal teeth and these teeth are not located in the front of the mouth like most teeth usually are.

Pharyngeal teeth are a unique set of teeth that are deep inside their throats connected to gill arches. You can find pharyngeal teeth in pretty much every suckerfish like buffalo fish and all carp species too. The teeth are like human molars so the way they consume their food is by grinding and crushing it into bits.

If a carp were to lose its pharyngeal teeth it would just grow them back so it wouldn’t be a problem. Beginner fishers assume that carp are toothless since they have no teeth near their mouth but their just very well hidden down in their throat.

Also since carp have teeth that are hidden most beginners think that carp are herbivores but they are omnivores that will eat fish and plants along with mollusk and bugs. The first time when I caught a carp I was surprised that it had teeth inside its throat and was amazed by the carp’s anatomy which made me want to learn even more about carp.

Are Carp Teeth Sharp?

No carp teeth are not sharp, their pharyngeal teeth are molar-like teeth that are meant for crushing and not piercing. Since their teeth are flat and round and not pointed or jagged their only option is to crush what it eats.

How Do Carp Use Their Teeth?

The way carp use their teeth is by using them as crushing plates similar to how we use our molars, the pharyngeal teeth in their throat are on the last arch of their gills, and above the teeth is the masticatory plate which is the hard roof of the throat.

When food enters the throat of the carp it starts to move its powerful jawbones by rotating them to grind the food and then its teeth crushes up against the masticatory plate breaking and grinding down any hard foods in the process like the hard shell of a mollusk so that it can get its meat and spit out the big leftover hard shell pieces.

Since carp eat practically anything that goes into their mouth their pharyngeal teeth help them swallow and digest food much better by making sure that everything gets broken down before it gets swallowed and moved on to be digested. Along with that their jaw power helps give their teeth the crushing strength that is needed for grinding their prey and food into smaller bits and pieces.

What Do Carp Teeth Look Like?

If you’ve never seen the pharyngeal teeth of a carp before they look similar to human’s molar teeth and are just about the same size too. Their molar-like teeth are round and flat shaped so they’re perfect for grinding and crushing food.

Can Carp Bite Through Fishing Line?

No carp cant bite through fishing line because when you hook a carp on the lip there are no teeth near its lip for it to be able to bite through the fishing line which makes it hard for them to escape when you land a solid hookset.

That still doesn’t mean that your fishing line cant get cut while your battling carp and there are two ways that the line can get cut when doing so. The first way could be if your use a smaller pound test line when fishing them since carp are fatter sized fish they have more strength and fighting power which could cause the fishing line to split.

The other way is if your hook got inside the throat of the carp unluckily while in battle where its pharyngeal teeth are which can most likely cause the line to get cut but the chances for your hook to go into a carp’s throat is very low. As long as you use the right size line when fishing for carp you won’t have any problems with the fishing line getting cut so always make sure that you are.

What Pound Test Line For Carp?

The recommended pound test line for fishing carp is a fifteen to twenty-pound test monofilament line and I like to use a medium-heavy action carp fishing rod to be able to reel in the large carp without my rod having to snap.

How Do Carp Eat?

Carp use both their sense of smell and taste for finding their food, the first thing a carp will do when searching for food is use its nostrils to smell its food which helps it get close to it. Once it’s near the food the carp will then rely on its taste buds but not by using its tongue.

Carp have thousands of taste buds on the outside of their body specifically below its body, on the underside of their face, near the edge of their pectoral fins, and their four barbels. The barbels work as tongues so while the carp has its face down in the silt its also tasting the food that’s buried.

When the carp tastes food like a worm it will suck it right into its mouth along with some rocks and silt. The palatine which is on the roof of the mouth will trap the worm or any other food and blow out the rest of the unwanted sediment so that it can pass the food down to its throat where the teeth are once it’s clean enough.

The surprising part is that only less than ten percent of the silt that it sucks in ends up getting swallowed which is incredible!

How Much Do Carp Eat Per Day?

With carp being a fish that eats aggressively they can eat a lot per day, on average a carp can eat around two percent of its body weight per day which is quite a huge amount of food considering how big they can get.

A twenty-pound carp, for example, can eat around six ounces of food per day and that’s over thirty boilies so whenever you’re going out to fish for carp make sure that you bring a good amount of bait with you for the occasion.

Most carp fishers believe that carp need around twelve grams of protein for each kilogram of its weight. That sounds like a lot of protein for a day but since carp eat pretty much everything that goes into their mouth’s from bugs to plants and even small fish, their able to get their protein easily.

With carp being omnivores they aren’t very picky eaters making it easy for them to find their food in whichever habitat that their living in.

Do Carp Have Jaws?

Yes, carp do have jaws, at first you might think that they don’t because you don’t see any teeth in their mouth which would make you think that there are probably no teeth if there are no jaws for supporting them. But since carp have teeth hidden inside their throat their jaws help with the eating process.

The jawbones of carp are tough and the way they use them to eat is by spinning them. This process causes its food to get grinded and makes it easier for the carp to consume it. When a carp swallows a crayfish the jaws will grind its solid shell to break it apart so that it can get the crayfish meat inside of it.

Any bigger pieces that are left after that are crushed and grinded even more by its pharyngeal teeth that crush up against the masticatory plate which is the roof of the throat.

What Do Carp Bite On?

When it comes to carp they will mostly bite on baits that have protein and fats which is a similar nutritional value to what they eat. Here below is a list of my three go-to carp baits that I use when I go fishing for carp starting from the best to my least favorite.

Panko Jello Sweet Corn Pack Bait – To make this bait you will need jello gelatin mix, panko bread crumbs, and a can of sweet corn. Making this mix is simple and fast, the first thing you’re going to do is pour the panko bread crumbs into a small bucket or container.

If you can’t find any panko bread crumbs you can just put a loaf of bread and put it in a blender to make the bread crumbs. Next, pour the jello gelatin mix onto the bread crumbs I like to use the cherry flavor but any flavor will work fine.

Then the canned sweet corn but before I pour the sweet corn in I pour out half of the corn juice and add the rest into the mix. The last thing to do is to mix the ingredients with your hand until you are able to make a ball out of it and if you use too much bread crumbs or jello mix you can just add a bit more corn juice.

Now that you have a pack bait stick it into a lead then stick your hook into the bait and you are ready to go catch some carp. What I like about this mix is that it can last a couple of weeks if it’s refrigerated but if it’s not it will only a few days.

Feed Corn – Feed corn is a budget-friendly carp bait that doesn’t cost too much and you can find it in any grocery store easily. Corn in general is a great bait for fishing and trout also like corn. Compared to sweet corn, feed corn is bigger which is better because the smaller fish like bluegill would tend to steal the sweet corn from the carp.

Since feed corn is larger, small fish won’t be able to eat it and won’t mess with it. Boiling the feed corn will make it larger and also makes it easier to set up in a hair rig. When I fish with feed corn I like to use a hair rig because it helps with landing excellent hook sets on carp and hides the hook as well.

Bread – Not only is bread cheap but it’s also entertaining to fish with and it attracts carp quite nicely. Even though it’s a great bait for catching carp it does have its downsides. Bread falls off the hook too quickly and there’s many other fish that will want to go for it and will most likely get to bread before the carp can.

Some fishers that like to fish with bread use small pieces of white foam as fake bread since it looks like real bread. Along with that, they use a clear fluorocarbon line to help not scare the carp away. Before you cast your bread into the water it’s best to dip the bread in the water first to get a bit more weight, doing this will slightly increase casting distance.

In Conclusion

In conclusion, carp do have teeth and their teeth can be found inside their throats so next time you catch a carp take a good look down its throat and you will be able to see its pharyngeal teeth.

Now that you have learned that carp do have teeth and facts about carp teeth go out there and catch some carp and don’t forget to try some of my favorite carp baits.