The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I fished a lake a couple of years ago and caught some very nice "crucians" up to 2 1/2 lb. Great fun but there was something not quite right about them, the infamous brown goldfish. This lake was known for a large head of these fish plus some true crucians and were often catch in quite sizeable batches, not by me though.
So you can catch brown goldfish, crucian carp but never goldfish.
How did they hybridise?
There has been enough debate on this site about these fish so where are the goldfish? If I had bought a batch of crucians and found these amongst them I would bag them up and send them back.
Where do BG's come from?

View British Aliens Nature Series - Jack Perks - Giant Goldfish.

Perhaps a funny question but...
I'm clearing out my garden pond in view of a new one being built, so the existing goldfish are being given a temporary home in an aquarium. Inevitably there are some brown goldfish amongst them but I don't really want to put them in the new pond. Would anyone want them for stocking a non-ornamental pond? I don't really want to kill them and I know it's very irresponsible to put them in another lake, so...?

I've seen brown goldfish in some long established ornamental lakes. As far as I'm aware a goldfish stock will eventually revert to brown specimens over time.

What's this one below though - Brown Goldfish or Gibel Carp.

Week before last, I was fishing in a two small linked pits on The Wirral run by Port Sunlight Angling Club and called Roadside (because they are!).

30 or so years ago it contained pure Crucian, Tench, Roach and Rudd. It now contains exclusively Brown Goldfish, Tench, Roach and Rudd. In those 30 years it has never been stocked by the club. It’s a very healthy water where they all breed very well.

Some time in the late 1980s or early 1990s, Goldfish and Shubunkins started appearing in the pits. Within a decade or so the Crucian, Goldfish and Shubunkins disappeared and Brown Goldfish took over. One I caught on that trip ……



The last remnant of the Shubunkins is Brown Goldfish with huge fan tails that fight like nothing else! My brother caught one and I’ve asked him to email me a photo which I’ll post later hopefully. Club members call them Mermaids!

Goldfish + Crucian x time = Brown Goldfish.

Phil

As promised, one Wirral Mermaid ………



Phil

Wow! That's some tail!

MWithell wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 7:33 pm Wow! That's some tail!

Loz, my brother, says he’s had them with larger tails but it’s the largest I’ve seen!

Phil

Phil Arnott wrote: ↑Sun Aug 21, 2022 3:34 pm I've seen brown goldfish in some long established ornamental lakes. As far as I'm aware a goldfish stock will eventually revert to brown specimens over time.

What's this one below though - Brown Goldfish or Gibel Carp.

Hi Phil, if this is a regular haunt try and get some really clear mat photos with fins extended. If we can then count scales on the lateral line and rays on the fins we could have a stab. It appears to have an interesting convex dorsal in that photo.

We used to catch fish we simply called ‘hybrids’ around some of the Essex ponds back in the eighties. Big fan tails but quite uniform in a grey colour. They would have been some kind of goldfish/shubunkin.