Traditional Carp Strains

[JohnHayes]

Is there any pure traditional carp strains still around such as pure leney's (Galacian's), Old English common etc.

[Olly]

I think the term "Wildies" covers that.

[Santiago]

Depends what you mean by traditional carp strains! Mirror and leather carp have been around for hundreds of years, originally bred by monks in the early middle ages, which are therefore earlier versions of the Leney's. The ancestors of all three being fully scaled wildies.

What other strains are there? For the above might all be considered traditional, but less so the Leney's, because they originated from selectively hand picked Galacian carp from Holland in the early 1930's. However, many more carp of Galacian origin were imported and stocked in our lakes etc. up until 1956, but these were not Leney's per se, because they were not selected. So the strains are debatable! Did, for example, Leney create a different fastest growing strain by hand selecting his original carp?

[JohnHayes]

I was more referring to the early common carp strains, such as the common carp caught by otto overbeck in 1902 from Croxby pond was this an old English common etc? as from a picture seen of his catch it doesn't seem like your typical wildie and this was pre Donald Leneys Galician stock

[Santiago]

Then it may well have derived it's heritage from a British monastery stock pond well before Leney was even born.

[JohnHayes]

Apoligises santiago I used the term leney very loosely I should say galacian strain

[Olly]

Historically there were carp farms long ago - when/where is the question.

Was the record fish of 20 lb caught by Andrews from Cheshunt a wild fish or a stockie? As it was from a disused water reservoir originally built in about 1850 - 1860ish, I reckon it was stocked.

Leney's fish came from a fish farm in Holland. Galacia, where the carp were brought from to Holland, is a bit farther east.

In fact found the exact area of ponds a few years ago after an article I think that explained all, probably by Chris Ball!

[JohnHayes]

Gary Bills from a discussion on cheshunt put very well what I am trying to find out:

“Victorian/Edwardian commons (in cases and photographs); and comparing them to modern kings - usually the marked difference I have described above can be noted... And we still lack the knowledge and terminology for big "Pre-King" carp, such as the initial Cheshunt stock and the Croxby fish...I suspect that these were the product of quite advanced selective breeding well before Thomas Ford, perhaps over 100 years before - but who bred these "Old English Commons"? Cheshunt, I believe, was only built in the 1830s - so who provided the carp? Is there a significant fish breeder/importer still to be discovered?”

[Olly]

I used to fish Cheshunt and moved the fish stocked after the 1964 fish kill to their new home.

[Marc]

Carp are thought to have appeared in the late 14th to early 15th centuries, either from the continent or from the east, depending on who you read. Mainly for nobility to eat, replacing pike, and farmed from the mid 16th century. Monasteries are generally said to be the mainstay of the farming, but I think this is probably to do with the amount of land awarded to them during that period and them being central to trade; plus we’ve all been romanticised about those idyllic stew ponds to go catch a Wildie.

So if you can find a never touched pool somewhere, and there’s probably not many, if any, then you’ll find the original strain of carp. Proving it would be almost impossible; without knowing where the people in the middle ages brought them and doing a DNA test.