What is about Carp ?

Where I work there are a fair few Carp Anglers , most of them a few years younger than me. I do a bit of Carp fishing ,but over the years have targetted most of our Coarse fish as I live close to the Dorset Stour and Hampshire Avon .
In the 1990's I spent my summers after Chub , Bream and Barbel, then fished for Pike and Roach in the winter. In the early 2000's I got into Catfishing big time and spent less time on my local rivers , but still did winter pike fishing on the Stour and a bit of perch fishing . Also have had a few trips chasing some of the foreign species on my 'wanted 'list.
When I asked some of my carp addict workmates what other species they had fished for, or caught , I was suprised that some of them had only caught carp ,a couple had caught tench and bream "..by accident ", but with two great rivers on our doorstep they had never even tried to fish on them.
I know carp are good fish to catch and often bigger than other coarse fish ,but I would hate to just go for one species all the time , what is it with the carp obsession ?

simon dunbar said:

Where I work there are a fair few Carp Anglers , most of them a few years younger than me. I do a bit of Carp fishing ,but over the years have targetted most of our Coarse fish as I live close to the Dorset Stour and Hampshire Avon .
In the 1990's I spent my summers after Chub , Bream and Barbel, then fished for Pike and Roach in the winter. In the early 2000's I got into Catfishing big time and spent less time on my local rivers , but still did winter pike fishing on the Stour and a bit of perch fishing . Also have had a few trips chasing some of the foreign species on my 'wanted 'list.
When I asked some of my carp addict workmates what other species they had fished for, or caught , I was suprised that some of them had only caught carp ,a couple had caught tench and bream "..by accident ", but with two great rivers on our doorstep they had never even tried to fish on them.
I know carp are good fish to catch and often bigger than other coarse fish ,but I would hate to just go for one species all the time , what is it with the carp obsession ?

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This is exactly the way i was heading! I started off fishing with a light ledger and float, for bream, tench, chub, then like you in winter time would mean getting my spinning rod out and chasing pike. Then i slowly started to spend more and more time carp fishing (mainly because my local lake was fishing well). But TBH i am starting to get bored with the whole carp scene and i am going back to fishing for all species. The main reason is i was becoming a lazy angler, sitting behind my bite alarms or tucked up in my bivvy just waiting for the next run! They do say that variety is the spice of life...

Theres been a lot of threads about this and on this site the numbers of members that are out and out carpers is probably in the minority. I have never been a single-species angler, although i may devote many weeks or months at a time in pursuit of roach, tench, chub or bream...and occasionally carp too.

The thing i noticed after i got my first pair of bite alarms earlier this year is that they soon become the default method when legering. Even though i was often quivertipping on one of the rods, i would still be placing the rod on a bite alarm just in case i wasnt concentrating on it.

So i think some of the attraction of carp fishing is that you dont have to concentrate on it, put in the hours, and get rewarded by large fish. Although many would argue that it is good not to have to watch a rod tip or whatever..and you can watch the water for signs of fish instead..that is not in my experience what happens though. That is not to say that carp fishing isnt hard work - having read a few blogs where anglers have tracked down the fish, got to now their movements and pre-baited for weeks it obviously can take a lot of effort. But compared to 7 hours of frenetic float fishing after which i have felt quite knackered, sitting back and waiting for an alarm to go off does seem a more relaxing approach.

They grow big, they fight hard, they sometimes provide a bit of a challenge and the advantage for fishery owners is they are probably the hardiest of species tolerating even the worst handling so a good choice to stock.

Though if I had the Dorset Stour and Hampshire Avon on my doorstep you might never see me on a stillwater again!

As far as anglers are concerned, they grow big and are to be found in pretty much every area of the country. As far as the industry is concerned, they are fashionable and sell gear, bait, magazines and day tickets. To an extent the two aspects are symbiotic and self perpetuating. At some point in time, if we haven't reached it already, we'll come to saturation point.

I think that the industry has tried to go down a similar road with barbel angling. However, as I'm yet to encounter a shop that stocks nothing but barbel gear, I don't think they've managed it just yet.

First let me say I am not a carper but will on rare occasions fish for them.
I suppose they can give allmost anything you want.
They can be caught in large numbers for match anglers, they can often be easily caught at good sizes for pleasure anglers or be difficult and wary fish for the specy guys.
They can be caught sitting behind rods, watching floats or surface caught with floating baits.
They are readily available all over the country in both still and running water.
Add to this their fighting ability it is obvious why they have become so popular.
But give me roach or crucians any day or winter pike.

Hi

Most of us olduns started on small silvers and then progressed up through the fishing ranks as we got better and better and just regard Carp as another type of fish to catch. Nowadays large numbers of kids start their angling on the local carp lake and only know how to catch carp. They have never had the joy of sitting there on a spring evening catching roach. That's sadly how it is, everything they see on the TV or read about in the magazines is how to go about catching big Carp.

For me my favourite fish are Tench, Chub, Barbel and Roach, especially a 1 pond roach on very light tackle, they can put up a hell of a fight on a super slim float rod with 2 lb line and a size 20 hook.

Paul

The way that carping has gone for many anglers is akin to leaving tethered nightlines out. mg: I camp and when camping I sleep and I fish. But I don't camp, sleep and fish at the same time. That is why the bolt rig is in almost universal use; you can sleep in your bivvy safe in the knowledge that a carp will hook itself and allow you enough time to dress, breakfast, read the morning paper and still land it. :wh

Also, there is an element of male jewellery involved. Tackle must be 'matched' and paraded on display with all the right brands on display. Its more like a fashion parade than a sport. Cycling and birdwatching has gone the same way. Every component on a bike has a maker's name on it and anyone would think if your bino's weren't Bushnell or Zeiss they are made from beer bottle bottoms. I don't have three items of matching tackle other than hooks and lead shot, let alone three identical rod and reel combo's. I don't even have enough bank sticks to make three double rod rests.

Then there are the statistics. There are photos of anglers who wouldn't know how to locate a feeding fish grinning from behind a 50lb carp that someone else has provided for them. God help them if they shut down commercials and they had to walk a river and find fish. But those figures mean that they can compare favourably with other anglers even if the playing field isn't even.

This is why I love it out here in France. True there are plenty of 'rent a carp' commercials set up for visiting Brits with a wish list or 20's, 30's or even 50's to fulfill and some of the younger locals are comically blinkered to bolt rigs, alarms and four-rod pods, but there are a lot of big waters that hold some very large carp, and see few if any carp anglers. Many of them are free to fish too. These lakes and rivers are the same as what was written about in the 1950's and 1960's in the UK. These are naive fish and are a totally different challenge to what you see written about in Carp Fishing World.

I think that like Sam, a saturation point will be reached and sadly at that point we anglers as a whole shall lose touch with the hunting element of our sport. I'm afraid that carp and McFishing are here to stay.

I'm just glad carp fishing has become as popular as it has, it means less anglers on the river bank which is fine by me I must admit to being a bit worried about barbel fishing going the same way though...

Good carp fishing can be found in many different types of water. Many find rivers to provide some of the most challenging, but rewarding, fishing. Being that many rivers connect directly with the ocean, it has been said that perhaps the largest carp in a given river may reside in the stretch between the beginning of the tidal influence and where the salinity becomes intolerable to the carp (exactly where this is located is unknown, but some state water that is roughly half fresh and half salt is likely the limit). For example, a carp of 42.03 pounds was caught from the tidal stretch of the lower Connecticut River in southern Connecticut.
This fish was a confirmed, documented state record. Without the hard work and know-how of a group of local carp anglers, it has been said that the proper documentation of this fish would not have occurred

frothy said:

I'm just glad carp fishing has become as popular as it has, it means less anglers on the river bank which is fine by me I must admit to being a bit worried about barbel fishing going the same way though...

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This is very true!

sussex river man said:

This is very true!

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I'm not sure that it's possible. I do believe that the industry has tried to make it happen though. Unfortunately for them, barbel angling is only ever likely to be as appealling to a similar kind of angler to those hardy souls that would pursue river carp. The average carper, that the more commercial carp waters appeal to, are not tempted by rivers, too much like hard work. Same goes for barbelling to a large extent. Now if stillwaters start seeing regular captures of double figure barbel or all rivers become sanitised to the point of having toilets, standpipes and very easy access, then you might see a dramatic change. While the employed tactics may have converged a fair bit, much to the disgust of the more purist, barbelling is still quite different to the modern carping scene.

As well as having a certain bygone aura attached to it as being a big and difficult fish to catch, Carp where the first species that really leant itself to camping + fishing...put up your tent and be a boy scout for the night. I think the appeal and polularity took off from there.

Because some people choose to spend all of their angling hours in search of carp should not be a reason to criticise, should it?

I actually agree with the sentiments of many posters in as much as I believe that for myself there are greater rewards and experiences to be had by targetting lots of different species. However, I have no compunction in sitting behind an identical set of three rods, reels and alarms when I choose to do so.

Live and let live.

terry m said:

Because some people choose to spend all of their angling hours in search of carp should not be a reason to criticise, should it?

I actually agree with the sentiments of many posters in as much as I believe that for myself there are greater rewards and experiences to be had by targetting lots of different species. However, I have no compunction in sitting behind an identical set of three rods, reels and alarms when I choose to do so.

Live and let live.

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I'm not sure that I can see any great criticism in this particular thread. Which is nice because I've just been prepping for a three day camping session myself. Hopefully, I'll do a bit better than my last long stay camping trip.

If people enjoy it thats for them , I'm an occasional carp angler but full on ignoring other species is not for me

Ditto

But living in the south east and being limited to day ticket local fishing most of the time I am stuck with local 99% carp waters, but do often find myself sneaking onto the kids ponds just for the pure fun of catching Roach & Perch on very light tackle. Thankfully there is one complex that I can just about get to that stocks Chub, Tench and Barbel, but its not the same as river fishing for them.

Having said that its not that I don't enjoy catching big Carp it's more like I don't like some of the local "Carp" anglers, all shaven headed with loud mouths and beer, you can clearly hear their conversations from the other end of the lakes, and that's just the kids, you should hear the racket when the parents turn up.

Oh for the joys of early mid week fishing when the little darlings are still tucked up in their nice warm beds.

Or am I just getting old and intolerant.

Paul

Lord Paul of Sheffield said:

If people enjoy it thats for them , I'm an occasional carp angler but full on ignoring other species is not for me

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The way things are going this decision might be made for you. Waters that once held good roach, bream and tench have had carp introduced and these have taken over to the extent where carp are the only species worth fishing for. That is the danger.

i fished for carp back in the 80's when they where few and far between nost of the anglers at my local ressy or the tring complex all fished for bream and tench with big bags of roach up for grabs. if i was lucky enough to catch a carp it was on 6lbs line fishing for tench and i loved them.
then along came fox and the instant carp angler arrived on the scene. prices whent through the roof and all of a sudden designer fishing gear started to be made. but 90% of this tackle was targeted at carp fishing.
very few places stocked big heads of carp back in the 80's and after i did a stint in the army and got back into lake fishing in the uk these carp waters had started to spring up. farmers that had trout lakes netted the fish and replaced with double figure carp and hey presto what might have taken weeks of hard work and water craft could be achieved with a single day ticket.
though i spend about 50% targeting carp i think the carp puddle waters have ruined fishing and put focus on how big a fish you can catch and not on how good a fish looks.
ive had well known angling journos turn around and belittle really good fish including low double figure carp becuase they only want a 30+

Again, as well as differences between the barbel and carp scenes, I also think there are differences in the carp scene from north to south. I don't recall hearing anyone up north belittling sub 30lb fish, I'm sure some do though. However, one of the most popular carp fisheries I know of north of York doesn't even have a single fish over 30lb, that doesn't stop it being full most of the time. I've long suspected that if this particular water were even one hundred miles further south, it would be all but ignored.