Julian wrote:FarliesBirthday wrote:This is interesting, and raises the question as to how the weight had packed on so much over the "norm", when Yates caught it as the record. Let me be controversial, for devilment, and say, - we might be talking two different fish when we talk about the Bishop - because the Hilton forty has significant scarring on the operculum, judging by the pic, and the Yates 51lb 8oz does not..
I'll duck for cover now...
![Scared :Scared:](./images/smilies/icon_scared.gif)
Initially, Yates did not recognise his record as the "38"...
I thought the reason CY did not initially recognise the fish as the "38" was simply because it was covered in mud when first landed.
Also the '38' started to appear very regularly after the 1976 drought, and there are various comments about it looking increasingly larger throughout the period 77 to 79.
As for the scarring - there was a photo posted on a recent thread on TFF where a large carp that had chunks of its tail missing and damage to scales had regrown the missing parts of the tail and the scaling was almost normal again just a few months later.
I thought this might get you going...!
![Hahaha :Hahaha:](./images/smilies/icon_hahaha.gif)
However, I did once go through all the pics of the Bishop I could find, and that scarring remained over quite a few years, only to be absent when Yates caught the 51...curious...
As you say, Julian, probably eventually healed up...
Of course, that doesn't explain the
sex change...between the time Bob Jones caught it and the time it broke the record...