It seems that every landowner with a spare field is digging a carp lake these days. With such a large population of anglers wishing to dip their carp tackle every weekend and prepared to pay for the privilege it is not surprising. But is the trend for stocking artificially reared carp of record breaking proportions really good sport?
The carp will only grow naturally to around 40lb or so in UK waters. Richard Walker was the first angler in Britain to catch a carp over 40lb and for many years it was kept in the aquarium house at London Zoo. Under exceptional conditions a prime specimen may reach around 50lb.The British record is now some 67lb. It seems that the record keeps on rising!
The common carp will grow much larger in the warmer climes of Europe
. The world record now stands at some 91lb landed by Andy Komomicki from The Graviers near Dijon, narrowly beating the previous record caught by Graham Slaughter at 88lb from Rainbow Lakes near Bordeaux again in France.
One reason for the swiftly increasing size of the UK record fish is that foreign fish are being secretly imported to the UK. No longer do we have to make the pilgrimage across the channel to hunt the 50 or 60lb fish, there are venues in the UK advertising these fish by name and charging us for the privilege to fish for them. But before I upgrade the strength of my carp tackle and double the breaking strain of my reel line, I must pause to think about the impact of such imports on our sport.
If you want to fish for a named 50lb fish in a tiny pond, hoping it has put on a pound or two since the last time it was caught, then I suppose you have the choice to do this. However the other choice would be to seek out and discover the new swim - holding virgin, never been caught, fully scaled commons, even if they only weigh 10lb.
The Environment Agency is currently formulating far reaching regulations that will hopefully end the fish smuggling business by making fishery owners prove where their fish have come from. They will have the powers to remove illegally stocked fish and close the fisheries down and stop the smugglers stealing fish from rivers to stock still waters. At long last it seems like the authorities will clamp down on imported monster carp, often stolen from their European homes, and allow our UK waters to revert to their more natural state.
It has to be a better feeling catching a UK record of 50lb knowing it grew naturally to that size than one of 70lb knowing that it was one of a dozen of that size stocked last year?
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