Australian Carp Article

[Vagabond]

Vagabond,

Not sure which trout you are talking about? If so, forgive my ignorance.

Wild brown trout Salmo trutta variety Salmo trutta fario

 

Why it is not clear - well - ? Often it is because an abundance of anglers disrupt the females in spawn, refuse to take responsibility - and blame the carp.

You completely misread the situation I describe.

 

I was the only person who fished these streams - tiny overgrown streams with what you Americans call "pocket water" Difficult (no, very difficult) to fish, which is why I had them to myself. Read John Geirach's "Fishing the High Country" and you will get the idea.

 

I had several streams I could fish, and was very careful not to put too much pressure on any one of them. I suppose any given stream would get about five visits a season. So your suggestion of "abundance of anglers" is way off beam.

 

The lakes concerned used to hold good roach, rudd and perch before the introduction of carp and were clear - these days they are the colour of lentil soup. The trout fishing did not deteriorate suddenly, it wound down over a period of about ten years.

 

There is no doubt whatsoever that I am right in "blaming the carp" the introduction of carp was the only variable in the equation.

 

******************************************

 

...and Den, you keep banging on about good silver fish co-existing with carp. Isn't most of your fishing done in gravel pits north and east of the chalk downs ?. ie where there isn't very much mud for the carp to stir up. Yes, both carp and silvers grow big in such waters.

 

Come 20 miles Southwest onto Wealden clays, and it is a different story. Give a carp mud or clay and it will stir it!

[poledark]

Dave, I take your point re the overstocking of your local ponds/estate lakes. I am pretty familiar with most of them (at least how they were 50 years ago) I cut my teeth on many of them, and have crawled the banks of almost all those tiny brooks and streams. Several trips each close season. As you say, the trout were never prolific, most getting caught in the first week of the season which started on April 1st. 1/4 oz bullet and a worm dropped in most holes would get you a fish or two.

 

My memory of most is that they had all been "managed" in the 1800's, small sluices put in place every few hundred yards. Whether this was to provide better fishing or not, I have never been able to discover, but almost all those sluices/weirs have washed away. For those unfamilier with those streams, most can be stepped/hopped across! and would never had sustained a large head of fish at any time, and just the taking of a hundred or so each year would have been a serious problem. I knew a handful of guys who fished them each spring,so my figure of 100 may be very conservative.

 

Most of the lakes these streams flowed from held carp, that is the reason I fished them (pike in the winter) The carp were almost all "wildies", and although they do/did stir the mud up, they weren't in sufficient numbers to colour the water to stop the weed growing. As a point of interest those lakes used to have large expanses of weed, which is where we stalked the carp. Weed filters out silt.

 

I have not visited them for many years now, and you say they are heavily overstocked with carp, mismanegement perhaps? not the carps fault, but the owners/clubs responsible. The carp just make the best of a bad job and get on with their life, and the anglers flock there to catch them.

You rightly state that I live in a different part of the country,albeit only( 50 miles away for Phones benefit ) but even though the pressure for carp fishing is immense, none of the larger waters seem to suffer from this "mudhole" problem. There are a fair number of "mudholes"dotted around, but I don't class them as carp fisheries,even though many are prepared to pay £25 a night to fish them, even £48 for a weekend!

 

It is the failure to differentiate between the different types of carp fisheries which get's my back up, it is just a blanket hatred of anything carp related. You should all be thankful that carp fishing has sustained the popularity of fishing, not many clubs would survive on a few tiddler bashers, even though there appear to be a huge number of them on AN

 

Enjoy what is left of your fishing Dave there are many places I am afraid to revisit, afraid of what may have happened to them. Although it is not all bad, I spend a fair bit of time fishing for Rudd and Roach on my highly pressured carp lake, they are getting bigger each year, even though there are now millions of tiddlers playing havoc with anything on a hook. As an experiment, a young lad shared my swim last week, and he cast a maggot feeder around in all directions, and we counted the time before a knock on the rod tip. Casts were over quite a large area,up to 50yds in each direction, and the longest we counted was 9 seconds................................and you think you have a problem

 

Den

[gozzer]

It is the failure to differentiate between the different types of carp fisheries which get's my back up, it is just a blanket hatred of anything carp related. You should all be thankful that carp fishing has sustained the popularity of fishing, not many clubs would survive on a few tiddler bashers, even though there appear to be a huge number of them on AN

Den

 

Den, as you know, back in the 'old days', we had just three main branches of angling, Sea, game, and coarse. Now through clever marketing, and maybe gullible anglers, coarse fishing is split. To promote the introduction of 'specialised' tackle, and 'modern' angling, we now have carp fishing with it's own category, and the rest demoted to 'silvers'. Is it any wonder therefore that 'carp angling' is classed as one branch of angling out on it's own? While the rest of us are classed as "tiddler bashers", and looked on as some kind of inferior 'species'.

If you want to blame anyone for this, then blame the commercial interests who initiated this, (for monetary gain). or the anglers who sustained it, (for the benefit of their own egos).

 

John.

[Sportsman]

Den, as you know, back in the 'old days', we had just three main branches of angling, Sea, game, and coarse. Now through clever marketing, and maybe gullible anglers, coarse fishing is split. To promote the introduction of 'specialised' tackle, and 'modern' angling, we now have carp fishing with it's own category, and the rest demoted to 'silvers'. Is it any wonder therefore that 'carp angling' is classed as one branch of angling out on it's own? While the rest of us are classed as "tiddler bashers", and looked on as some kind of inferior 'species'.

If you want to blame anyone for this, then blame the commercial interests who initiated this, (for monetary gain). or the anglers who sustained it, (for the benefit of their own egos).

 

John.

 

Sorry John, I thought that carp angling was "pukka" and specialist angling was barbel and all else was pleasure angling.

 

BTW I had a 30 minute try (the first) on my lake yesterday, just using a whip and sweetcorn.

What I need to know is how can I get past all of the 8oz-1lb roach and rudd I was catching and get through to the quality 4lb carp that I know are just waiting to be caught.

Change of bait perhaps?

Edited August 29, 2011 by Sportsman

[Phone]

Vagabond,

 

Now I've got you all stirred up. Yep, Brown trout. And yes, you're commenting to multiple folks and I didn't realize the "muddy" compairison was the exclusive stream you talked about.

 

It is not all that contensious. Fact is 1, the water is muddy; 2 you have carp. I'll never convince you they are NOT related because of carp. Even though the clearest most pristine streams in Europe, carp native habitat, have contained carp for thousands of years, Lakes that are practically exclusively carp are clear water to the bottom. They too have become muddy. Just took the carp a lot longer to "muddy the water" in them. Certainly not self respecting European predator angler would blame external forces.

 

When left to their own devices carp are rather tidy feeders. They don't uproot like hogs. And, they practically never create mud (a difficult task usually left to a deity). Nevertheless, you and a bizillion others, certainly you are not alone, watch native species diminish and carp show up then put two and two together. You know the presence of carp just might be a testiment to their ability to survive in water that "for some reason?) became to crappy for native fish. For sure, when served lemons, carp can make lemonaide. Every species can't.

 

You know some of the "nasty issues" we have with carp I'm sure. I've already spoken about Utah Lake so I'll stick with it as an example. Despite removing (I now think it up to about 8 - 15 million) carp the water is still clear as a bell. Not "clean" but clear.

 

Well, so much for that. We could beat a dead horse forever. I still contend you "blame the messenger" to at least some degree.

 

My next point. It is difficult to talk about spawning trout. The nest is a rudd. You fish for rudd.

 

Phone

[Vagabond]

As you say, the trout were never prolific,

Actually I didn't say that - I said I avoided putting too much pressure on any one stream (My family would eat about six half-pound-plus trout a week from April to August and I would give some of my host farmers a brace or two each from time to time)

 

But you contradict that a sentence later

and a worm dropped in most holes would get you a fish or two.

As you say, some trout in almost every hole!

My memory of most is that they had all been "managed" in the 1800's, small sluices put in place every few hundred yards. Whether this was to provide better fishing or not, I have never been able to discover, but almost all those sluices/weirs have washed away.

 

Most of the derelict sluices and weirs on my streams date very much earlier than that - the Wealden Iron Industry in the sixteenth century - Elizabeth I's time - the iron used to make ship's cannons and cannon balls. The Armada, Francis Drake, Merrie England and all that.

 

Dams and sluices were constructed to provide a head of water to turn a water wheel, the wheel powering iron funace bellows, or a hammer mill for forging. Many local farms have the word "Furnace" or "Forge" in their name - did you ever fish any such ?

 

I never met anyone else on "my" streams, nor saw signs of other anglers having fished there (the only footprints I ever saw were my own from a previous visit) That was in forty years of fishing the High Wealden streams (I rarely fish them now) I suspect you fished a bit to the north of my main stamping ground. How far south did you get (I've heard you mention Ashurst) ?

 

 

I have not visited them for many years now, and you say they are heavily overstocked with carp, mismanegement perhaps? not the carps fault, but the owners/clubs responsible.

 

Well, I'll agree with that

It is the failure to differentiate between the different types of carp fisheries which get's my back up,

 

Oh, I differentiate all right, and avoid the worst commercial mudholes - its the idiots (usually angling club committees I'm sorry to say) who can't differentiate that get my back up, when they dump carp into every conceivable pit, pond and dam, including some I have fished for silvers and perch for many years - I could name half a dozen little ponds that once held nice rudd and some small tench, that are now hotbeds of ravenous pasties. I'm all for carp fisheries if it keeps carp and carpers off my favourite waters, but I'm afraid that doesn't apply any more, they want carp everywhere.

 

there are many places I am afraid to revisit, afraid of what may have happened to them.

Well, that just agrees with what I have been saying all along.

 

As an experiment, a young lad shared my swim last week, and he cast a maggot feeder around in all directions, and we counted the time before a knock on the rod tip. Casts were over quite a large area,up to 50yds in each direction, and the longest we counted was 9 seconds................................and you think you have a problem

I rest my case !

Edited August 29, 2011 by Vagabond

[Vagabond]

When left to their own devices carp...... practically never create mud (a difficult task usually left to a deity).

 

....and there's me thinking that carp had already achieved god-like status

 

...and I agree that carp are not the only things that stir up mud and cloud the issue.

[poledark]

Dave..you rest your case. I was referring to a large,deep clear gravel pit only 9 years old. A few rudd and tench left in the puddles when it was drained. Stocked with a couple of hundred good size carp (10 to 25lbs) and now it is overun with Rudd and Tench to the extent that they have to be waded thro to get at the carp.

 

It's not all one way traffic you know.

 

Thanks for the info re the dams and sluices, but many of the sluices were no where near any evidence of water wheels or iron works. They just seemed to be to hold back and create some deeper areas of water.

 

Can't remember hardly any of the names, we used to just look at an ordnance survey map, find a thin blue line and then follow the stream , usually ending up at a lake. This over a period of maybe 6 years, in my late teens and early 20's. I lived in Croydon then and we used to head south in an old Flying Standard. Furnace pond def rings a bell.

 

Den

[gozzer]

Sorry John, I thought that carp angling was "pukka" and specialist angling was barbel and all else was pleasure angling.

 

BTW I had a 30 minute try (the first) on my lake yesterday, just using a whip and sweetcorn.

What I need to know is how can I get past all of the 8oz-1lb roach and rudd I was catching and get through to the quality 4lb carp that I know are just waiting to be caught.

Change of bait perhaps?

 

No, you've got it wrong Dave, 'Carp angling' is now a completely different discipline to ordinary angling. It is far superior to fishing for anything else. You need 'special' tackle, 'special, baits, and 'special' methods before you even dare venture onto a 'carp fishery'. The likes of myself are designated the lowly name of 'silver anglers', and have to doff our fishing hats, and bow to our superiors should we get lost, and end up on the same lake as a 'carp angler'.

I might moan a lot, but I know my place.

 

As to your own lake, I would ask for a reduction in price if I were you. You've obviously (unknowingly), bought a property with a 'silvers' lake on it. You should have checked that at least 85% of the stock was carp. This blow to your standing in the the community, (and the embarrassed that goes with it), should be worth a few thousand off the price of the property.

 

John.

[gozzer]

When left to their own devices carp are rather tidy feeders. They don't uproot like hogs. And, they practically never create mud (a difficult task usually left to a deity). Nevertheless, you and a bizillion others, certainly you are not alone, watch native species diminish and carp show up then put two and two together. You know the presence of carp just might be a testiment to their ability to survive in water that "for some reason?) became to crappy for native fish. For sure, when served lemons, carp can make lemonaide. Every species can't.

 

Phone

 

I'm beginning to wonder if we are talking about the same fish here, phone. Maybe it's the language barrier, but the fish we have over here, (and that we call carp), are not the one's you describe.

 

Oh, and another misconception you seem to have. In the waters known to me, there wasn't a decline in numbers of other fish, until after the carp were stocked.

I do agree that carp can survive in water too "crappy" for some other species, but it's their introduction in numbers that makes the water "crappy".

 

John.