choo choo, Fairbrass edits his comments!

[poledark]

All this begs the question.... was there a 'need' for more carp before their introduction, or did their introduction create the 'need'?

 

John.

I don't know how old you are John, but yes, there was a very great need for carp ( or similar large growing fish) when I was a kid in the 1950's. Apart from the match anglers everyone wanted to catch bigger fish...hence the standard image of an angler holding his arms apart..."it was this big"

 

Left to their own devices most anglers will seek out those waters with bigger fish in them..........remember the reports of the D/F barbel and big chub and roach in the Hants Avon. It was the mecca for thousands of anglers, all after bigger fish.

 

The mags and weeklies are full of pics and "how to's" for catching more and bigger fish and I am afraid that carp serve the purpose admirably, and I have to say that the majority of those waters stocked with carp also contain excellent quality roach/rudd/tench/eels/pike and perch. I am not talking about the muddy little puddles stocked to satisfy the match types and others who want a quick fix who fish them, but the larger pits and lakes that exist in their hundreds all over the South of England.

 

God forbid that you end up with Otter fencing around every decent bit of water just to satisfy the whims of a few "conservationists", most of whom have never and will never see an Otter in the wild.

 

Have I said this before?? What if one day, and it could well happen soon, Otters move on to Wingham and start to decimate the stocks in the carp lake? Notice I said "the carp lake" it was never an Otter habitat and wouldn't an Otter fence improve the scenery

 

Den

[Worms]

Steve,

 

Arguably, as a non-native species, Natural England could refuse a licence for common carp to be introduced to a water, at least in a SSSI, SAC SPA....just because the EA allows it doesn't mean NE would! NE are particularly keen to see native fish retained and non-natives (including carp) removed from such waters....emptying existing waters of native fish to fill them with carp may well fall foul of NE's desires...I might offer this case to them as an example!

 

It wouldn't be the first time that NE got involved!

Edited May 14, 2014 by Worms

[Worms]

God forbid that you end up with Otter fencing around every decent bit of water just to satisfy the whims of a few "conservationists", most of whom have never and will never see an Otter in the wild.

 

Den, I think you've got that bit back to front....the last thing that "conservationists" want to see is miles of fencing around lakes and ponds, they want to see the wildlife...It's the carp anglers and fishery owners that want to see the fences up!

[poledark]

Just a further thought, how many "natural" lakes actually exist in the south of England? Almost every one I can think of has been man made, by extraction, damming water courses (Estate lakes) or mill ponds, or simply dug out for iron ore, building stone or whatever man needed. Even the rivers are managed with weirs to raise/control water levels. I don't think I know of one "Natural" bit of water.

 

And I repeat, most "conservationists" are sitting on their ass in front of a PC or TV and trying to tell the rest of us that we are all wrong and that we must go back to the last century to when the ponds and lakes (what ponds and lakes? ) were filled with huge native fish..................they weren't, they were full of tiddlers, I know because I fished loads of them. And as for the idyllic idea that kids need to catch little silver fish to get them started on angling, well I know a lot of kids that would never have started if that is all that were available. Blokes my age did, but that is all we had, but soon we looked around for bigger better fish to catch and reading about hose huge mythical monsters fired the imagination.

 

Den

[Vagabond]

It's a river that creates a sense of awe....

Yep, there is one that flows though the Pass of Brander. Huge steep-sided loch at its head, has a salmon run, flows down to a sealoch, then out of the sealoch via a spectacular overfall.

 

It does all of what you say above.

 

Its name ?

 

 

River Awe

[gozzer]

I don't know how old you are John, but yes, there was a very great need for carp ( or similar large growing fish) when I was a kid in the 1950's. Apart from the match anglers everyone wanted to catch bigger fish...hence the standard image of an angler holding his arms apart..."it was this big"

 

Left to their own devices most anglers will seek out those waters with bigger fish in them..........remember the reports of the D/F barbel and big chub and roach in the Hants Avon. It was the mecca for thousands of anglers, all after bigger fish.

 

The mags and weeklies are full of pics and "how to's" for catching more and bigger fish and I am afraid that carp serve the purpose admirably, and I have to say that the majority of those waters stocked with carp also contain excellent quality roach/rudd/tench/eels/pike and perch. I am not talking about the muddy little puddles stocked to satisfy the match types and others who want a quick fix who fish them, but the larger pits and lakes that exist in their hundreds all over the South of England.

 

God forbid that you end up with Otter fencing around every decent bit of water just to satisfy the whims of a few "conservationists", most of whom have never and will never see an Otter in the wild.

 

Have I said this before?? What if one day, and it could well happen soon, Otters move on to Wingham and start to decimate the stocks in the carp lake? Notice I said "the carp lake" it was never an Otter habitat and wouldn't an Otter fence improve the scenery

 

Den

 

I'm not quite up there with you, Dave, and Leon, yet Den, but at 64 I'm getting there.

 

You keep mentioning "in the South", obviously because that's where you lived. Up here it was different. Until I was mobile, (pushbike), and old enough to travel a bit, all that was available was the local 'cut', a couple of park ponds, and the bus out to the river Wharfe, when we could afford it. We had carp in a few waters, but they were 'special' fish, the 'grey ghosts' that would suddenly appear in your swim, and then disappear, we'd hook them occasionally, and land the odd one, but lost more than we landed. There were older anglers that fished for them almost exclusively, and a mid double was classed as a big fish. We fished the same waters as them, and got to know a few. We got on well fishing the same water, they didn't try to belittle us because we weren't trying for carp, and we respected them for their expertise, and experience. If they caught a decent bream or roach, they would call us over to witness it, (that's when I saw my first live 2lb roach). There was no mention of 'nuisance fish' taking a bait meant for their precious carp, it was just different types of fishing. Apart from my failed attempts at a 2lb roach, and a short lived preoccupation with the carp on a particular water, I have never chased 'big' fish. I was taught, and still believe that a big fish was relative to the species, and the water I was fishing at the time. So I was happy with a 12oz roach from a water that contain mostly 4oz fish. The same with my first carp, it took me several stalking sessions to hook it, and that 8lb fish was one of the biggest of the few that were in the water. I've had much bigger carp, but that fish from that water stands out above any of them, and I wouldn't swap it for a 40lber from one of the 'specialist' carp waters we have today.

I don't believe that todays obsession with carp, was created to fulfill a need, I believe it was introduced to create a 'need', for mainly financial reasons. That includes both stocking with pot-bellied monsters, and cramming as many 'pasties' into a water as they can afford.

 

John.

 

John.

[Worms]

Just a further thought, how many "natural" lakes actually exist in the south of England? Almost every one I can think of has been man made, by extraction, damming water courses (Estate lakes) or mill ponds, or simply dug out for iron ore, building stone or whatever man needed. Even the rivers are managed with weirs to raise/control water levels. I don't think I know of one "Natural" bit of water.

 

And I repeat, most "conservationists" are sitting on their ass in front of a PC or TV and trying to tell the rest of us that we are all wrong and that we must go back to the last century to when the ponds and lakes (what ponds and lakes? ) were filled with huge native fish..................they weren't, they were full of tiddlers, I know because I fished loads of them. And as for the idyllic idea that kids need to catch little silver fish to get them started on angling, well I know a lot of kids that would never have started if that is all that were available. Blokes my age did, but that is all we had, but soon we looked around for bigger better fish to catch and reading about hose huge mythical monsters fired the imagination.

 

Den

Sorry Den, most conservationists that I know, nay, ALL, conservationists I know say nothing of the sort.

 

To try and answer all of your questions:

As this country has been "managed" pretty much since the Neolithic, about 7,000 years ago one could argue that very little in the way of "natural" water-bodies exists. What we do have is a country that has been altered by agricultural practice since those times. Prior to the last thousand years or so little in the way of significant water-body alteration was made, as Man has advanced in technological skills he has altered a lot...I know you know this, I'm just trying to put it into context....With the advent of technology and the increase in the population changes and particularly the requirement for water for drinking and industry and irrigation of crops lots of changes were made...particularly in areas of mass settlement, i.e. the South East.

 

I'm sure you're only too aware of the pollution (industrial and agricultural) that damaged this county only a few decades ago. it damaged fish, birds, mammals, invertebrates, plants...and people's health. The clean up started which involved the banning of PCBs, Dioxins etc. etc. that nearly destroyed so much of our wildlife such as otters, eels and birds of prey. Slowly the "natural" (or unpolluted if you like) balance of our waterways and water-bodies is returning, albeit slowly and with some help by re-introductions of animals and plants to areas where they were made locally extinct and, these areas are being protected for the health of the Nation by UK and International laws. For example, we have lots of Great Crested Newts in the UK...they're all over the place...so why protect them? Because we have probably 80-85% of the World's population in the UK...They are internationally important.

 

Now imagine if the noxious chemicals that spewed into our rivers and air hadn't been banned...we'd have bugger all left to fish for, or photograph, or watch tv documentaries about.

 

The issue for Conservationists isn't how good the fishing is necessarily, it's about the preservation and, if necessary improvement of habitats, to put right what we broke. Slowly we're getting there. Rivers are getting cleaner, wildlife (including fish) is generally on the increase and, as a result, many of us are enjoying excellent "wild" angling on "natural" waters...just look at the Thames, salmon and sea-trout!

 

Putting non-native fish into ponds, whether man-made or natural and, at the same time removing native species is a retrograde step. It is also not necessarily legal and, the knock on effects could be catastrophic for areas downstream or within the same water catchment area. An example, I fish a river, the Teme, which is a SSSI. It is illegal to put carp into that river without the specific permissions. A private landowner built a private pond in his garden and filled it full of common carp for his own enjoyment. In 2007, the river flooded very badly and his carp ended up in the river. He was angry because he lost his expensive fish, even more people were angry because they had a dramatic (negative) impact on the river and native fish within a distinct area of the river...needless to say, a lot were removed. He was lucky, he wasn't prosecuted.

 

Sensible positioning of carp ponds isn't rocket science and, is now regulated more sensibly. For a tackle manufacturer to advocate removing native fish from ponds all over the country and to replace them with common carp is a nonsensical idea, probably illegal in a lot of areas and, goes to show just how little idea he has of ecology and the basic principles of conservation. Principles that would likely have an expensive effect on the survival (or not) of his countrywide carp ponds...and, as I said before, where do the native fish that he removed go? You can't just dump them in another nearby pond, you have to evaluate the ecology of each water-body. The whole idea has been hastily and badly thought out and, worse still, has been bandied over the media as a half-baked idea that has made a lot of people very concerned.

[Mark Wintle]

I can think of two truly natural lakes in the south of England; Slapton Ley and Little Sea at Studland near Swanage, both formed by the sea creating a sand/gravel spit. Don't get excited by Little Sea, just eels and sticklebacks and it's in a nature reserve - might have otters though.

[Vagabond]

I can think of two truly natural lakes in the south of England; Slapton Ley and Little Sea at Studland near Swanage, both formed by the sea creating a sand/gravel spit. Don't get excited by Little Sea, just eels and sticklebacks and it's in a nature reserve - might have otters though.

I am old enough to have fished Slapton Ley in its heyday (mid 1950s), before eutrophication took its toll. Beautiful clear water, stacks of potomogeton, rudd over 3 lb, two pound plus perch, pike of unbelievable size, huge eels. Very few roach in there then. Fantastic fishing. Plenty of otters there also

 

Now the conservationists have it, no fishing allowed. So effectively there are no natural lakes available to anglers, unless Beesands Ley (a mile or so west of Slapton) is still fishable. Even the oxbow lakes on the Sussex rivers are partly down to man's intervention.

[OTIB]

I too have fished Slapton, but is it really a natural lake ? Or did man intervene to create the lagoon, not sure, but it certainly did have some fantastic fishing available, and the channels through the dense high reeds were spectacular, of course history has a rather sad story to tell of Slapton.