The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

On a recent trip to the Great Pond at the Ravenfield complex I caught a reasonably sized Crucian and a fish of a similar size which was clearly not a pure Crucian but what I would describe as a Brown Goldfish ie the fish at the bottom of the photograph.Apologies for the quality of the photograph.My phone is very small and my fingers are very fat!

I'd agree Mark. Here a great resourse for fish ID

https://www.fishbase.se/summary/Carassius-carassius

A count on the bottom fish puts the lateral scale count out. Also the GISS (general impression of size and shape) is far from crucian, flattened body that isn't particularly deep, longer fins all round with a much darker colour.

I do hope you're keeping well.

P.s. I see why you need BSC or Snape to take your photos!

Not only are the fins the 'wrong' colour, look at the size of them too! The tip of the pectoral fin is touching the root of the pelvic fin. Huge.

https://www.farnhamanglingsociety.com/s ... rucian.php The tru-cru waters.

A perfect example of a tru-cru and a hybrid, Prussian or Gibel(?) carp - together.

I have caught fish like the lower one with an even bigger tail - a fantail x goldfish cross. A private pond in someones garden stocked with all sorts!

Crucian project - https://uclponds.files.wordpress.com/20 ... .jpg?w=768

I remember the excitement after looking in my landing net and seeing what I thought was a Crucian Carp, closer inspection soon put pay to my excitement it was in fact a specimen not unlike yours but with a bigger tail.

I can't remember the definitive number, but I think the proof is the scale count along the lateral line... I'm sure there is someone who knows.... this one at first glance was a crucian, but after a scale count was proven to be a crucian/brown goldfish hybrid

Double post

The lower fish isn't a gibel, just a hybrid with a different carp. I recently saw an example of a very similar fish being classed as a true crucian by a respected biologist but that one had a scale count or 32 or 33.

Aitch, your fish shows just how hard it can be to identify them. The scale count should be 32-34 from memory, yours is one or two short.

Scale counts:-
Courtesy of the crucian.org site:-
So a count of 32-34 suggests strongly that your fish is a true crucian, but we have to remember that it needs to be taken in combination with the other characteristics. For example, a goldfish x crucian hybrid can have 32 lateral line scales and a goldfish x common carp hybrid (F1) can have a scale count of, say, 34, approximately mid-way between a carp's 35 - 39 and a goldfish's 28 - 30. So a lateral line count on its own is not enough to identify a crucian correctly, though it is a good place to start.

Whenever I try to do a scale count, I lose track about three quarters of the way across, and eventually give up!

I usually find that brown goldfish can be identified even before they are landed, simply from the floppy, lethargic fight they put up.
Whereas a true crucian, with vigour and guts in its genes, will jig and jag all the way to the net.