Carp in brackish water

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Bobby Marlene
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Carp in brackish water

Post by Bobby Marlene »

Good evening. I was not sure where to post this, as it is not only about carp. I have a second home at the Dutch coast, on the Walcheren peninsula. There are many drains in the area and all of them are brackish. Still they are full of carp and lot are of decent size, around 8 pounds. You can catch them in almost any of the drains. Other fish are much less common (with the exception of sticklebacks and eels of course). I never caught a roach. There are bream, perch (very few) and pike (also very few).
I know that some drains (and they are all connected) were stocked in the past, and others still are stocked reguarly.
Now my question is, does anyone of you know which fish can reproduce in brackish water ( I know it depends on concentration, what I can tell you is that it tastes salty). I know that roach can not, pike I also think they cannot.
I saw little grebe often on the drains takign lots of small fish but could never find out what sort of fish.
Thanks for your thoughts on this. I keep thinking about it but have no idea where to find answers. Thanks, Bobby

Stuart Whiting

Re: Carp in brackish water

Post by Stuart Whiting »

Hi mate,

Well to be honest with you like you say it really does depend on the concentration but in general I'll correct you that roach can reproduce on the boarders of brackish water as I've fished for them in brackish for over 30 odd years in the tidal Thames as far down as Greenwich, it is brackish between here through the city and up to Battersea,
They won't actually reproduce directly in brackish but very close to it, anything below 5.5 ph and they won't breed and reproduce.

I know that roach can actually thrive in brackish waters because A) I've caught a lot of em and B) because I've seen the evidence of when the environment agency and TAC ( Thames anglers conservancy ) do there netting experiments around the " Lotts rd " power station area in Battersea :Thumb:

The other coarse fish that are normally found in breakish water are dace, bream and carp,

You can also get pike and perch at times in brackish but are normally few and far between :Hat:
Last edited by Stuart Whiting on Sun Oct 09, 2016 8:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Dave Burr
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Re: Carp in brackish water

Post by Dave Burr »

I's suggest that cyprinids can, depending on saline content, thrive in a brackish environment. Roach and bream show low down on many rivers as Thames Mudlarker says.

The barbel in the Hampshire Avon and Dorset Stour swap rivers by entering the Christchurch estuary. Quite when they do this and whether they travel when fresh flood water is in the river at the time, I don't know.

Stuart Whiting

Re: Carp in brackish water

Post by Stuart Whiting »

Dave Burr wrote:I's suggest that cyprinids can, depending on saline content, thrive in a brackish environment. Roach and bream show low down on many rivers as Thames Mudlarker says.

The barbel in the Hampshire Avon and Dorset Stour swap rivers by entering the Christchurch estuary. Quite when they do this and whether they travel when fresh flood water is in the river at the time, I don't know.
Probably more likely to be during the winter floods rather than the summer flash floods as the winter floods normally remain up and coloured for a lot longer giving more time to manoeuvre aswell as more fresh water being pushed down through the valley :Hat:

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DWW
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Re: Carp in brackish water

Post by DWW »

An interesting thread this one . I fish the Arun in Sussex and the river is tidal . The salt water however rarely reaches much above the Ford to Arundel area depending on the sizes of the tide and the flood water etc . I fish for Mullet ( badly ! ) and during these exploits in the lower reaches the traditional " Coarse " fish are around in numbers . Roach , hybrids and Carp are regular visitors to areas that you would normally expect to be only the preserve of Bass , Mullet and Flounders ! As a dyed in the wool Pike fanatic I have yet to catch a Pike from these areas but others have done with some large specimens coming out . I have fished in the Baltic where Pike and traditional Sea fish are caught from similar areas though so there is some history !
I have caught Carp on the sister river to the Arun in Sussex , the Adur . These have come from " tidal" reaches but the saltwater influence is non existant , only the " tide" being the issue. On this river the experts believe the Carp feed very low down on the tidal reaches and feed up on the flats and then move back with the flows of the tide . Food for thought !

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Bobby Marlene
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Re: Carp in brackish water

Post by Bobby Marlene »

Interesting to hear of the different brackish waters that members fish. For the tidal ranges of rivers I would think that the fish can reproduce in the upper river and only come to the brackish waters for feeding. Same for trout in brackish lochs that are connected to the sea and have spawning burns. In the baltic sea a lot of pike grow to enormous dimension. They reproduce in sweet water lochs/rivers connected to the sea. In Walcheren the brackish drains have no connection to any sweet water as far as I know. I have to find out.
I read in "The complete book of the Roach" by Mark Everard that roach cannot reproduce in brackish water. I´ll try to find out the salinity level of the drains.
Thanks for your thoughts, best, Bobby

Stuart Whiting

Re: Carp in brackish water

Post by Stuart Whiting »

Hi mate, this may be of use :Hat:

Image

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Arjan
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Re: Carp in brackish water

Post by Arjan »

I know I'm kicking up an old topic, but as a biologist by education, I'd like to add that the 'original' carp is a riverine species, with many individuals spending the better part of their lives in the brackish delta of the large rivers they inhabit. According to Balon, an expert on the biogeography of the members of the genus Cyprinus, and an authority on the history of domesticated carp, a salinity of 6 grams per liter is no problem for them.

see page 18: https://ia801407.us.archive.org/31/item ... 00balo.pdf

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Snape
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Re: Carp in brackish water

Post by Snape »

Arjan wrote: Wed Sep 12, 2018 10:11 am I know I'm kicking up an old topic, but as a biologist by education, I'd like to add that the 'original' carp is a riverine species, with many individuals spending the better part of their lives in the brackish delta of the large rivers they inhabit. According to Balon, an expert on the biogeography of the members of the genus Cyprinus, and an authority on the history of domesticated carp, a salinity of 6 grams per liter is no problem for them.

see page 18: https://ia801407.us.archive.org/31/item ... 00balo.pdf
That's an interesting point and may help explain why some anglers have found the addition of salt to bait mixes seems to make them more attractive.
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Arjan
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Re: Carp in brackish water

Post by Arjan »

And that's exactly what happened with our carp. The 'original' carp is a slender and muscular fish, well adapted to swimming upstream in rivers. They spawn when the rivers swell in late spring, on inundated meadows. Many generations of breeding the fish in ponds left us with a population of fish not only capable, but even specialised in breeding between aquatic plants.
One of the fun things is that the probably oldest population known in the Netherlands lives in a shallow canal near the sea. The water is slightly brackish and in spring, farmers stop pumping out the water because their crop needs a few months of high ground water levels. At that point, the grasslands next to the canal are inundated and the fish spawn. Nearby populations that were intruduced later (and are your typical domesticated or at best feral carp) live under the same conditions, but no matter what, they won't spawn at that moment.

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