Commercial Carp Fisheries

[Fishy Dom]

I am curious about why people seem to either love or hate these waters? It seems you cannot fish one if you ever want to fish anywhere else because you are branded, I started fishing at ten and now, Thanks to these waters i am fishing a 19 acre pit for some gorgeous carp.

 

I feel that these waters are good fun for people who want to go and catch fish plus you still have to put some knowledge in to actually catch them.

 

Everyone seems to moan about the manufactured carp in here but to be honest no matter where you are fishing river, lake or canal somewhen these waters were probably stocked with some form of fish,

 

Controversial subject, i know, but i just wanted to know why we can all get along after all we all just want to catch fish, you wouldn't here of mountain bikers moaning about olympic cyclers just because the do it in a different area,

[Ed Matysiak]

I second that. There is nothing wrong with Commercial Carp Fisheries. I do have to say that there is a few small and over stocked carp pools near me where you could catch the carp with your net ! On the otherhand there is a few large waters that have some really good sport !

[Leon Roskilly]

I've no problem with someone digging out a lake and filling it with water and carp.

 

Nor perhaps with a small proportion of other waters being turned over to carp.

 

But I mourn the disappearance of traditional waters, with their stock of rudd, roach, perch, tench and crucians, where nature controls the stocking density, the weed and depth.

 

Waters where an angler needed to be something of a naturalist to understand the fishing.

 

Being bought up on such waters, one cannot help but be at least a little contemptuous of carp water angling, nor feel threatened by its popularity.

 

Just as music had so much more to offer a few decades ago, compared to the 'manufactured' sound of today's pop groups.

 

Home cooked stews compared to Ready Meals from the supermarket shelf.

 

And very nearly beer, only just saved by CAMRA from being a pasturised beer flavoured fizzy drink the same in every pub.

 

The disappearance of choice, that's the real gripe.

 

Yes there still 'traditional' waters available, but for how much longer as the economics of the popularity of carp water fishing keeps rolling like a steamroller across the land?

 

Tight Lines - leon

[Cranfield]

Its also suprising (and sad), how many commercial trout lakes, have transferred to "commercial carp fisheries".

With the loss of this type of facility.

 

We all know what is meant by "commercial carp fisheries".

 

But surely, any water that contains carp only, or mainly, and where you are charged to fish, whether its on a day ticket, club membership or as a syndicate member, is a "commercial carp fishery".

 

These types of lakes have "known" carp,specified swims, and loads of rules.

These aren,t the utopian, "traditional" fisheries, we like to pretend they are.

 

Each to his own.

[chesters1]

i was out with other the bailiffs yesterday with the headman of the club discussing removing a couple of overhanging trees , in the end despite our protests (1 bailiff resigned) ALL the trees will be removed from the bankside (the same was done the year before on the other bank) why ???its because he is also the chap incharge of matchfishing and a matchfisherman ,the reason ? ,simple, using hoofing great poles ,what was a quiet almost natural lake with a good head of fish will become a match venue :mad: :mad: the swims are also being remade (most of them are "natural" ones between trees ) these will be evenly laid out and four feet into the pond :mad: the measuring was done between the swims totally ignoring groups of water lillies that are the reason the swims exist ,when told that the new layout could have lillies in the centre of the swim (rather as now one side or the other) he said "no problem we`l rip them out " this pond being my favourite was the reason i took up the hassel of being a bailiff ,seems i may have to return my book

so its not only carp puddles but match puddles as well

 

[ 02. February 2003, 01:45 PM: Message edited by: chesters1 ]

[Paul_D]

It's not the waters which I dislike it's the people who run/own them who, generally, are only in it for one thing - and that isn't the welfare of the fish they put in them.....

[Sultan]

Reminds me of a lake called Bolingey. Once a dream of a water situated near Perranporth in Cornwall.

 

Used to be a cracking day ticket water, stocked with most species of coarse fish to respectable weights. Feeding maggot and caster you could catch roach to over a pound, bream, tench, perch and carp, big and small, not knowing what was coming next.

 

You can only fish this lake now if you stay at Whiteacres, which in itself, when it was run by the Seery family, WAS a great place to spend a holiday if you were a pleasure angler.I have been going to White Acres since 1988, but no more. Being a pleasure angler I felt as welcome as the plague last May. Not being a buddy of the camp angling staff, or a match man, no help was forthcoming.

 

Bolingey has islands, two arms and has now been fenced off to make three separate sections. All the fish were removed and carp put into the lake. 200lb per peg in each section. Just to make the matches fairer. Is this what you would call a "Carp Puddle".

 

One absolutely cracking lake ruined just to please the match men.

 

I think this the way it will go because a lot of young people coming into the sport are not prepared to fish just for the sake of catching fish, they have to catch carp cos they are big. I forget the number of times I have been by a lake with kids with all the expensive carp gear and finding out they have never been taught to float fish, but that is another moan.

[Fishy Dom]

Some very good points there and i agree with Chesters1, some people are irresponsible and too business like, A mate of mine told me a story about 1 popular lake (i don't want to name it) that has to have all new fish every season because none of the previous stock fish survive the pressure, It seems to me that its not the waters that cause the controversy but the way they are run

[Bill Eborn]

I've just started a new job and had a conversation with one of my new work colleagues the other day, one of those what did you get up to at the weekend type things. I said I went fishing, that I'm into coarse fishing and return the fish etc, and she said 'oh we'd better not talk about that'. She's not a raving PETA type or anything like that, just a normal person and a veggie because she sees her vegetariarism as a benign and non-exploitative way of getting food and is uncomfortable with angling because she sees it as exploitative and harmful to fish.

 

I said, if I stand you on a bridge over a river or by the side of a lake can you tell me what species of fish you would expect to find there and where they might be. The answer to this of course is no. So, I said how can you tell me whether those fish are healthy or not and what the threats to them might be?

 

The thing about this conversation is that it is not an unusual occurance, I have had lots of similar conversations. I find that if I explain the model of angling that I try to pursue, which is about catching fish and enjoying the process sure, but is also about learning about them and trying to understand more about the world they inhabit and about how I want to find ways of protecting and preserving them, I am no longer a beastly fish torturer but someone who loves and respects them and looks out for them.

 

PETA and their ilk are one thing, but it is the groundswell of opinion against angling that I think we should be really concerned about. After all that's where PETA etc get their funds and their membership and its the source of public opinion that MPs and governments care about and want to chime with when shopping about for votes.

 

To my mind if fisheries are run on a commercially or co-operatively run basis is not the issue, its whether anglilng is about preserving environments, like the waters Leon mentioned and ones Chesters complained were being despoiled for conveniance sake and whether it is about 'giving something back' and not just about gaining pleasure at the expense of a living creature. If fisheries are operating at a stocking density above what could be sustained naturally or if the environment is engineered to produce an outcome in terms of the size of the fish, or if fish are stocked into waters that don't suit them like Barbel in stillwaters then that crosses the line as far as I am concerned.

 

[ 02. February 2003, 07:46 PM: Message edited by: Bill Eborn ]

[Nugg]

chesters1:

i was out with other the bailiffs yesterday with the headman of the club

Chesters surely as a club water, the membership of the club have a say in what happens, have they agreed to this or is it a case of someone exceeding their authority. Even a quarum or something like it, should agree to such a drastic move. What do the club members think about this, thats if they know anything at all?