Anglers in the UK we have a very different view of carp to many other fishermen in other countries, not least in the States, but why is this?

Sure we have many other fantastic sporting species to pursue including bass and giant catfish. Our pike and perch are great sport fish too, but carp are given special status with good reason!

I’ve personally hooked carp in the 60 to 80 pound weight range and can class these as among the fiercest of fighting fish unstoppable on what is considered ‘heavy carp gear’ consisting of an 80 pound braided main line and 3.5 test curve rods. Having landed Wels catfish well over 100 pounds, carp can certainly match power, speed and adrenaline rush upon hooking up with them.

You may think that very exceptional carp are the only ‘king’ carp above ‘crap fish’ status. But think again. If you judge your success by the appreciation and merit of each individual fish landed, then every fish that gives you an appreciable memory of capture for whatever reason is worth pursuing. Size in not everything despite appearances!

 Just focussing on fish weight can lose you your satisfaction and level of appreciation of your fishing, as ‘relative’ failure to catch your goals is far higher statistically than with smaller fish and dissatisfaction can creep in where it is not warranted in any way. It can be very difficult to appreciate each individual fish among a haul of big fish, even when you may land over 10 fish of over 40 pounds or more in a single week’s fishing from an extremely prolific French venue.

In complete contrast, where you have planned and refined and studied and put vast effort and preparation into your captures, the results of each fish capture are well remembered as much as the details of the preparation, bait, location, observations logged mentally and so on. Catching 5 twenty pound carp in a row in a single night, on a new bait in the early nineties, still sticks in my memory, but such a catch is so commonplace in the UK today; it may at first appear meaningless.

But trying to sort out which fish means more to you when they far exceed personal ‘weight goals’ set in the past shows just how meaningless and out of mental proportion carp weights today can be. Deciding which 40 pound plus common carp out of various different separate specimens caught, (after making huge efforts to target just the one individual) is mind-bending and fruitless. They all are equal to the effort to achieve those catches and their individual beauty and character. The size is irrelevant where satisfaction is concerned.

I recall the capture of my first 30 pound carp and realise it came as a result of refinements in bait and rigs which has thus far landed me 15 doubles that day alone but hope of a bigger fish had left my mind. I had fished that lake for about 9 years before a 30 came my way that day, but you see, for most of that time fish of that size did not exist. They simply had not grown that size in that lake there yet!

Small carp abound wherever circumstances occur in favour of over-population. Many waters are deliberately over-stocked with small fish, for the benefit of anglers wishing for intensive sport. The fact that in the States, so many waters contain an enormous head of what is regarded as ‘small carp’ or ‘crap fish’ is really about a matter of perspective. The average bass caught in the States is not that big compared to the size of many carp record in many States for example.

Certain carp stockings will have much less potential for growth too and there are waters in the UK and Netherlands for example, as in the States, where the maximum fish weights peak at around 34 to 40 pounds.

Sure we appreciate bass in the UK too. Sea bass reach far into double figures here and are a very worthy quarry to pursue. Sea bass are fantastic looking fish and a torpedo of a fighter, even more amazingly powerful in sea currents off the beach, or river currents in estuaries. There are also many specialist anglers who fish for big perch, big pike and so on, each of which have much larger populations of smaller specimens than giants but which are prized nonetheless.

The fact is, even in the UK where carp have achieved such ‘cult’ status, going back a few decades, carp where pretty much considered ‘uncatchable’ and a specimen of 10 pounds was certainly notable. To demonstrate just how few large carp existed in the UK historically, not too long ago, the largest percentage of the carp population in the UK weighing over 20 pounds, were located in a handful of pits in North Kent.

Now that our national UK record is well over 60 pounds, this seems hard to believe to new anglers coming into the sport. Nowadays new anglers often want 30 pound carp and even forties! Yes many more captures of forty pound plus carp dominate the angling press today but these are still very exceptional fish. There was a time when a thirty pound carp was definitely considered the ‘fish of a life-time.’

Meeting an angler who had caught a thirty pound carp by the early eighties was a very rare event and waters containing thirty pound carp in the UK were very much harder to find indeed. Today there are hundreds and hundreds of lakes and rivers containing thirty pound carp and fish of this weight appear to be regarded with far less respect by new anglers today.

I feel exceptionally lucky to have spent a childhood ‘apprenticeship’ angling for all ‘course’ species and doing competition and ‘match fishing’ for coarse fish and sea fish too. For a long while, my childhood personal best carp was 7 pounds and 4 ounces of which I was very proud. This merely reflected the growth potential and capacity of this particular small water to support the fish nutritionally and its limits.

Visiting this same small water a couple of years ago, (after 26 years since fishing it last,) the average sized fish here is still much less than that 7 pounds.

My ‘game’ fishing exploits have produced for me wild sea trout, brown trout and rainbow trout and I’ve been lucky enough to hook a twenty pound river salmon in Scotland. I can tell you, there are far more tiny rainbow trout in many rivers in Scotland than browns or sea trout, but they are certainly not regarded as ‘crap fish.’

In the States compared to the UK, average temperatures in so many areas result in much higher average water temperatures, which can lead to in more frequent and successful spawnings of fish, and more abundant natural food. In such conditions wild carp and catfish populations can explode with average fish being pretty small.

Of course, with carp being a ‘foreign’ introduction to the States, just like the UK, much depends on the genetic heritage of the strains of fish introduced influencing growth and eventual weights achieved and many State records for carp are exceptional, exceeding the weights achieved by many prized species of catfish and certainly bass. Although carp fishing in Europe and many other areas of the world is a very fast growing sport, there does not appear to have been such a bias against carp as a ‘sport’ fish, in fact quite the opposite.

A double figure fish was regarded as a worthy fish by the legendary Richard Walker who for a very long time held our national carp record of 44 pounds – a stupendous fish for the time of capture. This fish was of great scientific interest. If the biggest carp in your lake is 12 pounds and you catch it, that to me is equal to eighty pounds –I’ve hooked both and I’ve come to this conclusion and this to me is the only ‘sane way’ to maintain any perspective on catches.

Goal setting is a great way to grow as an angler, as in life in general, but in fishing it can have a ‘negative’ effect when taken out of context. Kevin Maddocks was one of the most well known and publicly successful carp anglers of his ‘era’ in the UK, particularly known for his feats exploiting milk protein boilies and the new revolutionary ‘hair-rig,’ from the seventies to the eighties.

His methodical and measurable approach using data collection, tables on catches, temperatures, water pressure etc spoke reams of the benefits of scientifically recording results in order to learn and refine everything you do as an angler. His goals reflected his exceptional ability as a carp angler even among his peers, but also to a significant degree, big fish experience he had gained on some very ‘elite’ waters and syndicates which were just not available to most ‘average’ carp anglers at that time, like “Redmire” and “Ashlea pool” for example. His goals matched him, but certainly were not ‘realistic’ for 90 percent of carp anglers at that time.

 I do feel that the influence of  Kevin Maddock’s focus on ‘results’ by individual weights of fish, such as “20 twenties in a season” and “3 thirties from 3 different waters in a season” has lead to a warping of perceptions among the carp fishing fraternity in the UK and parts of Europe most exposed to UK carp fishing influence.

Speaking recently to an ‘old school’ angler of over 40 years carp fishing experience again reminded me of the true nature of appreciation of the carp and of the sport. ‘Results’ are not everything; ‘appreciation’ possibly may be. Any ways to increase your level of appreciation and satisfaction of your fish, sport and the complex beauty of your fishing environment is ‘where it’s at.’

Small carp grow into big carp. It may take time or a particular water but its there to be enjoyed. Many anglers take great satisfaction from making their own baits, or finding new creative effective ways to enhance commercially available baits. Satisfaction is not bought unlike so much in modern carp fishing today. You get what you put into anything and fishing is the same. Bait can be a great ‘equaliser’ of ability or time availability when you get it right for a water. ‘Personal bests’ caught on homemade baits are most definitely far more memorable.

The benefits of learning about nutritional and food requirements can lead to an much improved personal diet and healthy cooking knowledge, range and ability too! Even to designing your diet using protein foods for muscle gain and weight loss, to raise metabolic rate and benefiting from higher nutrient and energy levels gained from a healthier natural and key area supplemented diet.

Fishing bait knowledge can even lead to including many foods in your diet which naturally boost your digestion, boost your immune system, clean your body of toxins and harmful cholesterol, and even help prevent major diseases of kinds caused by poor diet including diabetes, heart disease, bowel problems and so on. So your experiments to better your boilies, pellets or dough baits can really help you in a much more personal practical way.

There are many personal lessons to be learnt from fishing in general, nature big such a great teacher. The Bible and other religious texts put the same useful and practical lessons about the nature of true ‘success’ into words, but fishermen can observe many teachings in action.

Next time you land your fifteenth ‘pasty’ or crap fish of the day you might consider that each fish could well become very big fish in time, or if it had been stocked in a different water. How many potential records are you catching which will never get the chance to fulfil their potential? It makes you wonder...

By Tim Richardson.

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