Probably one of the biggest

Probably one of the biggest most dangerous problems of imported foreign fish is the mixing of slightly differently adapted carp immune systems and carp bloodlines etc, naturally developed in response to various conditions, diseases and parasites etc. We all know about the koi herpes virus and spring veremia; which have tragically killed many carp, both imported and more recently indigenous to UK lakes; but other threats exist too of course now!

Much comes down to your personal reference points and opinions in regards as to when exactly does a carp count as an English carp! Perhaps if a carp is imported as a fingerling (as were many of this country’s biggest carp,) or maybe when their progeny reach adulthood, perhaps then you might consider that these qualify as English fish? If I remember correctly the fish in Redmire came from Polish parents bred in Holland, so strictly speaking Richard Walker’s record fish and Chris Yates record fish were Eastern Europeans with a Dutch accent!

We may moan about Romanian immigrants eating our carp but then the major source of protein in Galicia and surrounding regions are carp. As we have no indigenous carp at all as they all have been imported right from Roman and medieval times etc there are no absolute true English carp just as there are no true English rabbits!

Maybe you think the only true English carp might be considered to be the original wild carp but I think it was the Romans who introduced these or at least monks from the continent over time. The irony is that these fish are notoriously slow-growing and attain very low weights compared to other strains. To catch even a high double-figure truly wild carp would be a fantastic feat – if you could actually find any of this weight and verify that they are pure-strain that is! How many more UK records will be nullified because the fish claimed as records are not pure bred strains?

Anyway, the arguments continue, but inspected legal foreign carp are in the modern carp fishing system and here to stay today just as they have been since the last forty years and more. And few anglers realise how much corruption of fisheries and carp blood lines has taken place over the decades due to foreign fish. Just a few of the big carp most of us know of by name are not necessarily fully English (if you get my meaning!)

There have even been cases of un-certificated fish movements within the UK that have involved English fish where the big name angler involved has actually been paid damages from winning a court case against a fishing paper. This is a case where in truth they really did do what they were accused of but there was a lack of evidence!

It is a fact that even clean certificated foreign fish (as well as English fish) can still pass certification but carry unknown factors which can kill our naturalised indigenous fish because the scientists do not know enough about them yet in order to identify them!

Considering it can take a carp over 30 years to realise its potential as a sport fish and such a fish can be lost in an instant, importation whether legal or not is something every carp angler has great reason to be concerned about, but the same applies to risks involved even in moving fish from one English lake right next door to another! But having said that, carp are an incredibly adaptive species and fish wipe-outs frequently safely leave alone those more resilient individual fish which are naturally far more immune to various threats.

Often seemingly minor genetic changes and mutations that turn out to be highly beneficial occur in humans and carp all the time; after all what are koi carp, ghost carp, goldfish and mirror and leather carp (and all king carp) after all but natural and artificially induced crosses - and mutations! Revealed in my unique readymade bait and homemade bait carp and catfish bait secrets ebooks is far more powerful information look up my unique website (Baitbigfish) and see my biography below for details of my ebooks deals right now!