Cultivated record fish-Press release.

I thought this may have been missed by some and worth airing, its at the bottom of the article "6 New Records" in the features thread. There were a lot of views on this in a thread a while ago and it seems the record Fish Committee have had some changes made, this consideration given on a recent carp claim :-

The members present considered at length Vinny Parker’s claim for the carp record following his capture of the fish known as Captain Jack from Holme Fen Fishery in Cambridgeshire and unanimously agreed that this fish should not be accepted as a British record.

After the last meeting of the BRFC in November 2017 the committee publicised through its press release a range of criteria which would be applied to consideration of future coarse fish record claims. These are:

The weight of the fish when stocked into the water from which it was caught.

The length of time the fish has been in the water of capture since stocking.

The origin of the fish and its history prior to stocking.

Whether the fish reached the weight claimed feeding on natural food and anglers’ baits only, without supplementary feeding or other treatments.

Evidence of the growth rate of the fish.

Consideration of whether the fish would be able to naturally sustain its weight in the fishery concerned.

The committee also made the following statement in that press release:

“The BRFC does not wish to encourage any attempts to introduce record size fish via imports, or attempts to manipulate records by producing record-size fish through the use of deliberate fishery management practices. The committee has faced import and aquaculture issues in the past and ceased records for Wels Catfish and for cultivated game fish as a result.”

Having considered the claim in the light of these criteria, the committee concluded that it could not accept this claim as a credible British record. The most significant factors contributing to this decision were the relatively high weight of the fish upon importation and upon stocking into the fishery, and the fact that the fishery had been subject to an artificial feeding regime for a considerable time following the original stocking.

just opening the popcorn now....bear with me whilst I get settled.

Don't think there's much to say that hasn't been said on here before.
Sod the popcorn, I'm going fishing for proper wild fish..

There's really nothing to say. However, I do believe that the BRFC lists are riddled with inconsistencies bordering on outright hypocrisy.

They refuse to accept claims for cultivated fish and refuse to accept non-native/invasive fish, yet they've just ratified a claim for a (golden) orfe/ide. How they don't qualify as both cultivated and non-native is quite beyond any logic I can think of.

Unfortunately this is the final nail for me. The new criteria introduce subjective measures and thats the end. Some of them are so ridiculously vague & subjective as well its almost laughable such as …

“Whether the fish reached the weight claimed feeding on natural food and anglers’ baits only, without supplementary feeding or other treatments”

I do appreciate the problem the BRFC have and I know its not easy but I think they went the wrong way on this. The only way the record list can now work is to simply throw it totally open and the biggest fish caught by fair means thats positively identified counts.Unfortunately they chose to try and take a middle of the road path and now its a joke.

I suspect many will now forget the BR list and just look at single species groups who keep their own records for anyone interested.

Philip said:

Unfortunately this is the final nail for me. The new criteria introduce subjective measures and thats the end. Some of them are so ridiculously vague & subjective as well its almost laughable such as …

Click to expand...

That echos my thoughts, if its bigger than the last one and caught in the British Isles its a record. Now it's open to subjectivity, who is going to decide how much natural or man made food its eaten. I think its all becoming a dogs dinner. I wouldn't like to see it abolished but just leave it simple as it was. There is still the biological and state of the nations fauna to consider and if its unacceptable to some as a record for whatever reason then that's their choice.

This is a very emotive subject and everyone has different opinions on this.

I thought that the British Fish Record lists could be used as an indication of the biggest weight that our fish can attain more naturally in our waters and not just what is the largest someone can import.

However I don’t think it’s too bad if the fish actually attain their record weights while actually growing in our waters over several years.

Keith