King? Carp.

[Bob Brookes]

Yes, I think the rods are beefed up now so that you can lob your baited hook to the far margins because nobody likes to fish their own margin. Wierd eh?

If you fish by your own margin you have to keep quiet and still.

SPOT ON!

[Cat]

'Quiet and still', the anathema of modern angling.

[SussexMan]

Does TFF have any fish geneticists out there? It is long-known that cultivated (ie 'king') carp will include a lot of mirror/leather carp with reduced scaling. Obviously this was a help in selling carp to fish-chefs but does anyone know why this scale-loss occurs? If you intensively breed cats (say) they don't lose their fur. More importantly, the early carp-breeders lacked the DNA knowledge available today.

[Kingfisher]

Yes, I think the rods are beefed up now so that you can lob your baited hook to the far margins because nobody likes to fish their own margin. Wierd eh?

If you fish by your own margin you have to keep quiet and still.

Good point and you get all those creepy wild animals creeping out from around you. Who on earth wants that?

[JAA]

Yes, I think the rods are beefed up now so that you can lob your baited hook to the far margins because nobody likes to fish their own margin. Wierd eh?

If you fish by your own margin you have to keep quiet and still.

Good point and you get all those creepy wild animals creeping out from around you. Who on earth wants that?

I've been known to hand feed bank voles...

[Dave F]

Excuse my ignorance but how do king carp differ from wildies apart from in size? My first carp were wildies in Bushy Park, near Hampton Court, generally stalked in the margins. Didn't they motor when you hooked them...

King carp have a noticable bulge above their heads, are much bigger and deeper. Wild carp are much more slender fish almost chublike, built like torpedos and have the speed of a torpedo too. Hooking a wild carp on an avon rod is just about the best experience in fishing to my mind.

Wild carp



Feral carp



King carp

[Dave F]

I always wanted to know the difference. I thought they were all just carp..

[Coral Maestro]

Does TFF have any fish geneticists out there? It is long-known that cultivated (ie 'king') carp will include a lot of mirror/leather carp with reduced scaling. Obviously this was a help in selling carp to fish-chefs but does anyone know why this scale-loss occurs? If you intensively breed cats (say) they don't lose their fur. More importantly, the early carp-breeders lacked the DNA knowledge available today.

[Dave Burr]

We are discussing carps not cats But the lack of fur would make them oven ready.

People have been selectively breeding animals for a long, long time. Farmers use it to provide hardy, large/small or lean stock and its meat. Fish farmers have also mixed strains of fish to bring out characteristics for the benefit of the angler or the table. Nowadays, it is much more of a science but the old methods have made their mark.

I do still find it strange that some fishermen know so little about the fish that they are likely to catch. I thought that fish, their behaviour and their life cycle were all part of the sport. I'm not having a go at anybody, I just don't understand how you can fish without basic identification knowledge.

[Kingfisher]

I always wanted to know the difference. I thought they were all just carp..

DaveF

The Cistercian monks brought carp over with them from the river Danube Basin. Romans could have possibly already brought carp over but it's only known that they ate them. The Danube fish were our wild carp seen at the top of those photos. Through centuries of cross breeding and cultivation we ended up with the king carp. A quick growing fish with large scales for easier removal.

Only a few of our waters still hold the original wild carp or fish similar to them, mainly through them not coming into contact with other strains of carp. Even in the Danube the strain has almost been wiped out through loss of their breeding grounds, through hydro electric dams being built and other structures. So the true wild carp is almost lost. Have a look at the wild carp trust website for more information.

https://www.wildcarptrust.org/

I used to be a trustee but Ill health forced me to resign