Whereare we going?

[preston96]

Before anyone jumps on me,i love carp fishing,i always have, BUT............

A pal sent me a mail asking if i could recommend a nice old fashioned tench lake in the Midlands......you know the kind, pin head bubbles fizzing around your float as light breaks........no huge fish but the hope of something special amongst the 2 to 4lbers.

My own first tench came from a park pool where i saw my bread paste "disapear" in the murcky water just before the float went........the renowned "Captains Pool"then gave me more traditional tench catches.

I really was disapointed not to be able to give my pal a list of waters to go at.....i couldn't and the reason was that carp had taken over most of the waters i used to know.......every one seems to want to fill everywhere with them.

My question is.......is it now time to call a halt? are we depriving future anglers ofthe whole spectrum of angling by this mass stocking ofcarp?

As i said i love carp fishing..............so don'tthink me anti carp, i just love to fish as my mood dictates...........and it's getting so i can't.

 

[Les Clark ( not too proud to nick a good idea fro]

Hi Paul , I must agree , in fact I have been thinking the same for a number of years now , I do like a bit of carping but it seems that every bit of water is now being overstocked with carp to the point of being bloody silly , I also like to fish for bream and tench but only know of one water that I can fish without being broken up by big carp .

The carp scene as changed a hell of a lot over the last 40 years and not for the better ./forum/smilies/confused_smiley.gif

 

[slime monster]

The penny is begining to drop amongst anglers brought up on Carp fishing that there must be more to this game than Carp ,the numbers are growing but old dinosaur roach anglers like my self have been a whisper in the winds of change for the past few years .

 

[Les Clark ( not too proud to nick a good idea fro]

Hi Dave , how you doing mate ?

Your right of course , a lot of carp anglers have never fish for anything else , not their fault , down to the carp mags and storys of big carp if they use brand x baits with brand x rigs on , on x waters ./forum/smilies/tongue_out_smiley.gif

 

[Steve Spiller]

Same as all the above comments.

I wanna go tench and bream fishing, but I know i'm gonna get smashed up by the carp!

Which aint fair on the carp, I don't like leaving hooks and line in fish!

So for that reason I have stopped fishing for tench and bream on stillwaters, what a sad state of affairs............

 

[Keith M]

I love Carp too but I get a bit perplexed when I hear young anglers say that they have not fished for anything else since they started fishingand that they wouldn't know where to start if they wanted to catch a Barbel or anice Tench by design instead of by accident on Carp Tackle.

I (like many other anglers) have been through the Carp Craze and long waits on the bank waiting for a large'named'Carp no longer holds my interest. I love stalking Carp but planning a carp venture, spending hours at home sorting out baits, tackle and tactics, and syndicate ticketsno longer excites me; in fact it bores me nowerdays as I like active fishing.

Some excellent anglers love Carp fishing and quite rightly, Carp fishing can take over and be your sole targetbut it's not for everyone. For me there are too many other equally exciting fish to catch, and catching known named fish no longer floats my boat. Many of my friends still love it but it's justnot for me.

As I see ityou are basicallya Trapper or a Hunter and Carp fishing is basically Trapping by preparing your baits and traps andlaying your rods and bait out in order to trap yourprey;and using alarms to let you know when one of your quarry has fell into one ofyour traps. While spending hours patientlyin wait for the fish you have dreamt of.

I am a hunter not a trapper, I like active hunting for myfish usually using just one rod on short oppertunistic hunting forays looking for my targetfish before activelystalking them and trying tolure them intotakingthe bait without them becoming aware of my presence. If the hunt fails I look for another prey and try all over again. Longhours spent reading, sleepingand socialising while patiently waiting for one of my traps to go off is not for me. Short hunting tripsare much more exciting.

I keep hearing of more and more Carp anglers that have moved on to other fish after concentrating on Carpand I think that more and more clubs have started realsing that the Carp is not the be-all and end-all of the fish world. so you are not alone Paul. The worm is turning.

 

[Graham Whatmore]

Hmmmm! That was the trend but I think things are beginning to change albeit slowly. I hear of a number of places that are stocking chub and of course we mustn't forget those barbel now must we and the trend for barbel as a hard fighting alternative to carp is probably growing even quicker.

Whether you agree or not, and there are always those that will say chub and barbel are meant to be in rivers, that is the trend and having fished a commercial with some stocked barbel I can't say that I personally disapprove nor did I see any signs of damage.

Tench pools, real quality tench pools, are rarer than hens teeth but if you think about it they have never been exactly plentiful have they. I can think of one or two in the midlands but theyare the long standing ones but stocking a pool with tenchhas never been plentiful has it?

 

[Specihunter]

Theres a pitI fish here in Oxfordshire, where you can catch tench and bream all day long and the odd carp . To be honest since I had my 30lb carp I don't fish for them much .

 

[preston96]

One or twoTench pools in the Midlands???....no, lets narrow that down to "our" midlands Graham....eg the Brum, Blackcountry, Worcs area.

My first Tench, On my pushbike to a land faraway known as Tipton........Fens pools, Himley supplied more as did the canal above Stewpony, but the Creme de la creme,was surely the early days of the Captains pool......before DT etc.........you add yours?

My point is that we always had somewhere to plan a "new" adventure.......ok,so i kicked the debate off with tench....it could have been anything, find a two acre or even less water,remove everything in it and fill it with carp ( even show them off in the angling press at the point of stocking!)

Something is rarer than hens teeth Graham,.....................but it sure ain't carp/forum/smilies/crying_smiley.gif

 

[Alan Roe]

I can go with your views here Paul I feel that angling has reached the point of being satiated with carp. Most of the waters round me here in God's own county of Lancashire seemed to have become carp fisheries.

I'm fortunate that I still have the rivers to go at but on the Ribble we seem to be having some of the problems associated with carp fishing with the folk chasing the barbel I have moved on again and am looking for some decent roach this summer and I have found a small river with a good head of mixed species that no one bothers with.

 

[Ray Daywalker Clarke]

Mr Spiller,

you want tench and bream, wait till you get to the Palace

 

[Graham Whatmore]

I haven't fished Himley for donkeys years Paul but there is a pool near Telford we used to fish that had some lovely tench as well as good bream that was Trench pool did you ever fish that?

 

[Steve Spiller]

Fingers crossed Ray /forum/smilies/wink_smiley.gif

It's true about the carp though,I would love to find a stillwater close to home with rudd crucians tenchbream and a few roach, but I've got no chance!

They are all full of carp!!!

 

[Clive Moore 2]

i fish for carp as my prime target fish, but if i see some other fish like tench, roach or bream, or anything on the day i will have a bash at them.

i agree that the STOCKING of carp is over the top, as EVERY water is for them it seems. i feel that just dumping huge numbers of carp into a lake and overstocking it is a horrible fishing scenario. to me i wouldnt want to fish for them. i prefer waters where you know the carp have been in there for a long time, the water isnt just a hole in the ground and the fish are not just bloated artificial looking things.

what i am saying with this is that old, matured waters that may hold tench and other species which have been in there for ages should NOT be filled in with carp because this destroys a quality water, they can overtake the other residing species and these new fish have little value to me and how i think about my fishing.

anyone agree?

Clive.

 

[Steve Spiller]

Wouldn't it be a joy to find a stillwater with no carp in it.

Tench bream crucians roach perch and rudd...........and the odd pike!

Not a carp barbel sturgeon in sight!

Dream on................

Times have changed and it's the "angler" that made it happen!!!

 

[preston96]

<blockquote class=quoteheader>Graham Whatmore wrote (see)</blockquote><blockquote class=quote>I haven't fished Himley for donkeys years Paul but there is a pool near Telford we used to fish that had some lovely tench as well as good bream that was Trench pool did you ever fish that?</blockquote>


No mate,i have never fished Trench.....tho i have known of it for many years,cats in there to.

It's good to see that carp anglers understand what i am trying to say...............thank you Clive.

 

[Graham Whatmore]

Pools that have a few carp in along with other species are quite acceptable to my mind, in fact they are a good fishery. I used to fish such a pool (Chad pool near Stow-on-the-wold) which held bream, tench, quite a few carp up to 28lb but averaging 8 to 10lb anda plentiful amount ofcracking roach, it was there I caught my first 2lb roach in fact but the average roach was over a pound. John and I absolutely loved it and because there were no snags we rarely got busted by the occasional carp that grabbed our bait, in fact we quite enjoyed the challenge.

I think some anglers get a bit carried away with the carp everywhere concept but those pools that aren't out and out carp match fisheries can be made better because of the presence of carp providingnumbers are kept under control. A worse situation arises where you have a really good roach water and bream are present resulting in cross breeding which is exactly what started to happen at Chad.

 

[Day Breamer]

I fished Himley hall quite recently, andthere was 10 anglers there in total,6 were after Carp, 2 was after the Roach, 1 was piking and i was the only one Tenching, but this was in early March so that would probably change alot comes June/July.

It was a mixed bag of anglers all after different things, which was nice.

 

[Peter Jacobs]

The classic example of what you are talking about has to be Old bury Hill Lake, outside of Dorking.

Some years ago this used to be your 'Crabtree' Tench Lake, then along came the Carp 'boom' and now you cannot buy a tench on there.

I still fish for Carp but on older private lakes where there are still other species, Tench and Bream living in apparent harmony.

To be totally honest, I am becoming more than a little disillusioned with coarse angling and the things that surround it, to the point where I am spending more and more time fly fishing. Hopefully, when the new season opens and I can get back on the rivers, then my enthusiasm will return.

 

[Mark Wintle]

One of the difference between stocking with carp and tench is the difference in cost. It's a few years ago but I remember carp and tench being sourced for a water and from memory the tench being 3 or 4 times dearer for fish of the same size. No small wonder that people stock carp.

I can still find a few tench though the pest that makes it hard to get through to the tench is skimmer bream in at least two cases. One very good water has been ruined by bream which no-one actually wants, least of all the carp anglers.