Monster Carp?????

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Barry Kneller

Guest
Does anyone know if there is any truth in the rumour that Maff is conducting experiments with genetically modified carp? There is a snippet about this on 'Fishermans Net' and some stuff on the predator fishing forum. All sounds most unlikely to me but IF it's true the implications are enormous. I know that the Israelis have been trying to produce a faster growing strain of carp for years.
 
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Dave Rothery

Guest
Not particularly for "artificial" biggies, but i guess we've been messing with carps genetics for a couple of hundred years!!
 
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John Pleasance

Guest
The question has to be posed; what would be in it for MAFF (now DEFRA),they surely wouldn't be doing it for the benefit of anglers would they?
 
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Barry Kneller

Guest
"what would be in it for MAFF"

Profit maybe, John - if they were in a position to be able to supply large carp off the shelf. What's the value of a health certified, genuine brit 30 these days?

PS typo in my original post - Fishermans Net should of course be Anglers Net.
 
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The Monk

Guest
Dave's right, we've had genetically modified carp for a long time, scaless carps are mentioned in the Doomsday book, so that takes us back to 1086 at least, designed specifically for the table with no scales on, our continental brothers are good at that sort of thing, MAFF have an hard act to follow, mind you they could try to modify our king varieties, make them long and lean, hugh shoulders, full of scales, why we could call them Wildies?

30 lb Wildies, now thats what I call carp fishing
 
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Barry Kneller

Guest
I think that there is something of difference between selective breeding to achieve a specific result (The strains of King Carp & modern fast growth rainbows for instance,although I think it's more a question of feeding with the rainbows) and actually introducing alien genes into a species. If you read the story on Anglers net, the Predator Fishing voy forum and on the predator-fishing email list you'll see what I'm worried about. The other question is of course, where are these supposed monsters? A lot of carp anglers would no doubt give their right arms to find (and maybe catch) them.
 
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Dave Rothery

Guest
Thers plenty of closed syndicates with big 50's (and sixties?) you don't hear about. there was allegedly one in norfolk that cracked the sixty last year, but didn't want to claim it due to it not being a "natural" fish(or was it no publicity?), and one up north that had one of the orient(?) fish
personally, if people are going to fish for big "stockies", i would prefer them to be healthy, parasite free stockies from england, rather than fish stolen from france,etc
wonder what chilly and ECHO's view would be?
 
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Barry Kneller

Guest
I hadn't heard about the 60 from Norfolk, coincidence tho' -it's claimed that some of the supposedly GM fish have been relesed in a large lake in Norfolk or Suffolk.
 
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