Seperate Set Of Records.

[Lurking Pike]

Thanks guy's. much appriciated

[Brian Crawford]

I think there should be separate records for river caught eels and eels caught in stillwaters.

 

Brian Crawford

[Lurking Pike]

Nice brian but why i've never caught a stillwater eel that was bigger than a river one. is it cuz i'm a crap eel fisherman

[Steve Burke]

davidP:

Not all fisheries are like that anyway. I live 2 miles from Wraysbury which is where the previous carp record came from. This is a big lake but with relatively small numbers of anglers. The fish will definitely be foraging simply because of the size of the lake. Or what about Wingham? There's a lake that seems to have huge potential and the fish are piling on the weight yet it isn't down to anglers baits - it's down to abundance of natural food with a few anglers baits thrown in.

I think it's significant that the last 3 venues to produce record carp, Redmire, Wraysbury & Conninbrook all had very little fishing pressure whilst the fish were growing. (Yes, I know that Mary was transferred to Wraysbury, but as a young fish I gather).

 

Rod Hutchinson wrote in Tim Paisley's "Big Carp" that fish soon get pushed off the best feeding spots by angling pressure and so have to settle for 2nd rate areas. I think it goes even further than this - if fish are wary of picking up baits they'll eat less in a given time and so not grow so big.

 

Bait going in of course is a positive factor, but I believe isn't so important as the negative effect of fishing pressure whilst the fish are growing in length, typically up to age 15 in the case of carp. Thereafter, like humans, fish fill out in girth and quality bait then leads to a further weight increase.

 

The lack of fishing pressure is one of the reasons for the very high growth rates at Wingham. Additionally, as David pointed out, there's a huge amount of natural food. This is divided by relatively few fish due to Wingham being understocked compared to the vast majority of waters. (Mind you, most venues are grossly overstocked and not just commercial ones, but that's another matter.)

 

What perhaps you therefore want is a water that's been little fished for many years, and then gets lots of bait thrown in.......

 

I'd add that record fish are of course freak fish. For instance Two-Tone, the current record carp, is way heavier than the next biggest carp in Conningbrook. I don't believe that without long term selective breeding you stand much chance of growing a record fish. However, you can aim for a very high average weight, which is what I'm after.

 

However, for me records aren't the most important thing at Wingham. Far more important are the beautiful surroundings and the peace and quiet. It just so happens that restricting angling pressure to get the peace leads to the bonus of big fish.