Identify this Fish

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Simon Beehre

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Hi everyone

Well today i caught this fish in the Waikato River not far from my home in Hamilton. The river is chock full of Koi Carp but no commons to anyone's knowledge (or anywhere else in nz for that matter). I caught this carp today and to me it looks like a common carp.... could someone tell me if it is?

http://www.coarsefishing.co.nz/images/common_crop.jpg
 
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John Wood 2

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Hard to tell what size it is, but using th eleaf as a rough guide, I would say about 12 inches / 30 cm.

Does it have any barbules in the mouth? )It looks like it doesn't have any)If not, I'd say it looks like a brown goldfish (not all goldfish are gold in colour!).

If it has barbules, I'd say it coul dbe a very small common carp.

JOhn
 
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Simon Beehre

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wouldnt a goldfish have an up turned mouth though? this fish fed like a carp does on the bottom.
 
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Frothey

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koi....


even with lakes that only have mirrors, you'll occasionally get a common....its in the genes...
 
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Benny The Bream

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Whatever it is it deserves better than being slung on a wooden platform where is your unhooking mat???
 
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Frothey

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not sure unhooking mats are that big in new zealand....makes a change not to see it slung up the bank!
 
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Chris Bishop

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Hi Simon, thanks for the link to your forum - really interesting, never realised you had guys down under who fished for the same species some of us do until you joined our forum.

Were the fish introduced by ex-pat Brits or were they always there..?
 
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matt

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I think the orange mark on its belly may indicate some mixed ancestry.
 
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Simon Beehre

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Benny yes I probably should have used some type of matt. I've only started fishing for Carp and since very few people do it down here I've had nobody to learn from.

Chris thanks and yes we do have a few people Coarse Fishing down here. Its popular with kids and people who come down from Europe. Carp anglers find it amazing because there is pretty much un-limited potential. Most Kiwi's dont bother with Coarse Fishing because they think its inferior to sea fishing which everyone does here, I'm trying to get a few more people to give it a try though. As for species of fish they were all introduced by Accliamatisiation Society's at the turn of the century of just before... we have Carp, Rudd, Perch, Tench, Goldfish, Catfish and possibly Roach. Aparently Pike were introduced to but they never took hold.
 
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Simon Beehre

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Rik you could be right it does look pretty similar... but do goldfish have the same mouths as carp?
 
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Michal Felcyn

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If you are obliged to remove the carp from the water it was caught , like it is in Australia, then why you should have the unhooking mat? :) For me it looks like common carp, the fins may vanish due to lack of vitamins or some microelements or were virtually eaten by a predator or a parasite. Many things can happen, even abnormal juvenile development caused by genetic fault. There are many possible reasons and only few are exactly known and verified. If there are barbs in the mouth then it is Carp, if not then rather some kind of a "goldfish". Hybrids also possible, though any uncommon morpholigical changes may appear. In warm waters crosshybrids are very common, especially to non-native species. Without verifying the specific specimen meristic features you won't be able to identify the species. That also may be for exapmle a Buffalo Carp - from Asia...
 
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Chris Bishop

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Simon have you ever done kite fishing..? I stumbled across a website about it a couple of years ago, amazing stuff.
 
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Simon Beehre

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No but i was reading about it last night and you are right its pretty interesting.
 
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Budgie Burgess

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Do you know what this buisness of fish ID is getting harder all the time!Lots of cross breeding of ornementals with both crucians and common carp these days.Most comercials have some strange looking fish now!

Only on Easter week I visited two different fisheries and caught "crucians" on one they were a definate goldfish/crucian mix and the other a possible crucian /orfe mix.Top it all off the first fishery had Ide in it as well and Im 90% sure that some of the bigger silver fish I caught were roach/ide hybrids!

As mentioned if left long enough a population of Mirrors will revert to Commons after sucsessive spawnings.No idea how long though (anyone?)Remember that there was only crucians and commons (king carp) to start with and mirrors/leathers etc have only come about due to selective breeding by the fish farmers of old to produce more "user friendly" fish for the table.

Despite having caught lots of commons and used plenty of brown goldfish for bait! I would still be cautious in identifying the carp shown,gut instinct says its a brown/uncoloured goldfish though.Only seen them up to around the pound mark nothing like the one shown in Riks link.

In the past it has always been thought that hybrids cant breed but many in the fishery world arnt so convinced now.If they can imagine the problem we would have with 100% ID? One of the reasons no records have ever been set up for common hybrids such as roach/bream.
 
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