Very Odd Carp Behavior

Years ago I lived near a large, shallow and very clear park lake with apparently no fish living in it but a group of twenty or so carp of various sizes and a solitary goldfish.

I used to walk my dogs around this lake every single day and try to work out where they'd be under any given weather conditions. I was usually wrong! Every now and then I'd fish for them and if I was stealthy, even catch one or two.

One morning I found the fish in the very deepest part of the lake, down by the dam, a place they very rarely visited in the summer, and there observed the most extraordinary behaviour. All the carp were rising and falling through the water, from lake bed to surface, up and down, up and down, all morning long. This was extraordinary enough but what was quite unbelievable was the manner of this rising and falling motion.

Imagine the fish rising vertically from the bed and as they rise, spiralling around their own axis, like dancers performing pirouettes, and then when they reach the surface flipping over backward and falling back to the bed and repeating the whole movement over and over again.

To this day I have no idea what they were doing. I thought someone here just might have a clue...?

possible

I have never seen this either but, could it be some sort of spawning behaviour. Depends what month it happened; if around May-June then maybe?

whirling disease

I also used to see strange occurances such as you have just explained, however, i am totally Sober and Straight now.

Possible they were following the midge larvae, these rise and fall all day untill they are ready to hatch. As for the ballet dancing....not a clue.

Some carp in a lake near me were rising up out of the water and tail slapping around in a semi circle like dolphins we thought this was very strange as it was in November.

Rufus, were you playing 'The Dance of the Sugar Plum fairy' on your radio?

Seriously, no idea mate

I was as sober as a judge at the time, honest...!

It was really weird. This was in the days before mobile devices and hand held video cameras - Would have loved to have got a video of it. Thing is, if carp do this kind of thing as a matter of course, say its a pre or post breeding ritual then you'd think that someone else would have witnessed it elsewhere.

Perhaps it was to do with the shallow and clear nature of the lake - no weed and no cover out in the open and it was summer. Perhaps the oxygen levels fell too quickly?