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Crucians - float or ledger?


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Your right  Martin, there seems to be an awful lot of "so called crucians" in waters these days.  

Although I did have a few unmistakeable crucians last year, I also had a fair few of these....

 

IMG-0798,

Now that is supposed to be a crucian, and I think the scale count is correct, but, it doesn't look quite right to me.  On that particular water I think they are very easy to catch, just by fishing the margings with maggots, sweetcorn, casters, meat etc. I had them to just shy of 4lb and they put up a great scrap for their size.  People there reckon they are deffo pure crucians but i'm not so sure.

Edited by Tigger
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Apart from the scale count (32 to 34) and lack of barbules; and it’s usual reddish lower fin colours; a true Crucians tail is almost straight (vertically) or only slightly forked and has rounded corners, and it’s dorsal is large and ‘Convex’ in shape and also has rounded corners too.

See link below which details all of the differences between a true Crucian and a goldfish or f1 ; which is from the Crucian web site.

https://www.crucians.org/html/identification.php

Below is a picture of a Crucian Carp that I caught with its classic colouring and it’s rounded tail and dorsal fins. It looks just like a bar of gold.

Unfortunately not all Crucians are so obviously coloured.

Crucians004.jpg

Keith

Edited by BoldBear

Happiness is Fish shaped (it used to be woman shaped but the wife is getting on a bit now)

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They say crucians in a predator free water don't grow a deep sort of camel backed shape.  Reason they are belived to grow this deep body is to make it more difficult for a predator such as esox to engulf them.

Personally I don't think that is true, as i've caught crucians with a proper deep body, the shape I always picture as being a true crucian should be in predator free waters. 

I don't think a deep body would be much protection from an otter, although, it would be a help against being swallowed by a corm or goosander etc.

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Phenotypic plasticity - the ability of crucians to change shape in response to the presence of predators is well researched and documented - with fish being able to change shape in a matter of months in response to the introdiction of piscavorious predators (I believe they used perch in the experiments...) See: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1095-8649.1997.tb01972.x

Below is a crucian I caught a decade ago showing extreme phenotypic plasticity!

 

As for ID - these are my 'rules of thumb'... lateral line count almost always 33, 32 & 34 may be OK if everything else is right. Higher scale count probably means carp hybridisation, lower means it's probably a brown gold fish or a cross with one. Dorsal fin is convex  and caudal fin is paint brush like - gold fish have concave dorsals and prounounced V shaped caudals. And finally check the mouth there should be no barbules or even the hint of vistigial ones - if there are it points to carp hybridisation....

2-02 Crucian.jpg

Edited by Chris Plumb

"Study to be quiet." ><((º> My Blog

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Interesting stuff Chris!   

To be honest i'm not convinced about that theory as I catch crucians in waters stuffed with perch and they haven't got the hunch/deep body shape.   

That one in your picture is what I would consider to be a propper crucian, a real belter :).

Back in my youth all the crucians I caught were exactly like that one in various sizes,  but nowadays the majority of crucians I catch seem to be like the one in my pic.  They just don't look right to me.

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So what do we think the fish in Tigger's picture is? I can't see any hint of barbles (re being an F4), and it doesn't look 'goldfishy'. I don't know if there are goldfish in the water, Tigger?

I must say catching them almost up to 4lb is pretty impressive!

john clarke

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No goldfish as far as i'm aware.  Apparently the crucians were introduced as true crucians but I am not entirely conviced that they are true crucians.  They're deffo not f1s but do look a little goldfishy to me.  I suppose the only way we would ever know what the fish really are is if dna was done on them.

I would love to find a water not too far from myself that contained good sized crucians, propper ones as in Chris's picture.  I only pick odd crucians like that up on rare occassions and they have been on catch em all sessions and not by specifically targetting them.

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 My largest Crucian of 3lb 5oz was caught in around 1980-ish from one of my clubs ancient gravel pits ‘Frogmoor’ which is now called Moor Mill and this pit also produced a Crucian Carp that was less than an ounce off of the British record for a member a couple of years ago. 

NB: The same gravel pit (now knicknamed the Leather Pit by it’s members) briefly held the UKs largest ‘leather’ Carp (Toadless) too after ‘the previous Record holder ‘Heather the Leather’ died; until it too died at just over 44lb a couple of years ago.

My son and I occasionally fish there for its Carp and it’s Tench and it’s Crucians.

Keith.

Edited by BoldBear
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Happiness is Fish shaped (it used to be woman shaped but the wife is getting on a bit now)

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Hey everyone, it’s been a while, hope you’re all doing ok. Couldn’t resist a crucian topic :)

I did a bit of crucian fishing a few years ago and caught using both float fishing and bolt rigs with little method feeders. The float fishing was a lot more enjoyable but I didn’t do it after dark, only in daylight. Watching floats with lights on makes my eyes go funny. 
I tried the lift method but actually preferred using a very delicate waggler with the bait a couple of inches on the bottom. Most bites were lifts anyway, but not the big lifts you get with the proper lift method. 

The little method feeders are very effective if you don’t mind using them. There are lots of good videos on YouTube showing you how to do it. 
For baits, I mostly used plastic corn or maggots, or real pellets on the method feeder, and soft hookable pellets when float fishing. 

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And those who were seen dancing were thought to be insane by those who could not hear the music

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Hi Anderoo, nice to see you back again :thumbs:

Keith

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Happiness is Fish shaped (it used to be woman shaped but the wife is getting on a bit now)

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