{"id":564,"date":"2008-10-02T14:44:40","date_gmt":"2008-10-02T13:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/?p=564"},"modified":"2013-12-13T18:34:38","modified_gmt":"2013-12-13T17:34:38","slug":"french-fish-don%e2%80%99t-count","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.anglinglines.com\/blog\/french-fish-don%e2%80%99t-count\/","title":{"rendered":"French fish don\u2019t count!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>There was recently a long ongoing thread on the Carpforum about the subject of non \u201cEnglish\u201d fish \u2018Not<\/strong><\/span>\u2019 counting!<\/p>\n

My first question would have to be \u201cdon\u2019t count for what or for whom?\u201d<\/p>\n

It is a subject which as a resident in France, a holiday provider and a fishery owner strikes a chord. The fish in the picture is a very pretty 30lb+ mirror from the Orient, – “Does it Count?”<\/p>\n

Ok! let\u2019s wind back a bit and look at this fish we strive to catch. Carp have indeed been around for a long time and were farmed as far back as Roman times. And Carp were brought to the British Isles from the continent of Europe – as we are reminded by Izaak Walton in The Compleat Angler<\/em>: – probably in the 15th or 16th Centuries:<\/p>\n

“Hops and turkies, carps and beer,
\nCame into England all in a year”<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Hops were introduced into England in approx 1428 but carp may have been introduced as early as the 1300\u2019s the early writings are unclear and even the authorships are in dispute so we can only say that the carp was established in the UK by the end of the 1600\u2019s<\/p>\n

“King” Carp didn’t arrive into Britain until relatively recently. Donald Leney of The Hazlemere Trout Farm is responsible for the famous strain stocked into Redmire and other waters. These fish imported from Holland originating in the Galicia region of Poland were sold to many angling clubs and introduced into many waters which latterly became famous for the size of the fish they produced.<\/p>\n

So like many other so-called British Institutions, all this suggests they’re not really British at all!<\/p>\n

How long does a carp have to be resident in a water to count as an indigenous inhabitant \u2013 rather than an \u2018artificial\u2019 introduction?<\/p>\n

These question raise a few points to ponder and is a subject that brings me back to a topic I have already written about, and touches the very essence of angling and its deffintion.<\/p>\n

\u201cAngling is the technique of catching fish using a rod and line; it is called \u201cangling\u201d because of the angle formed by the two. It has been suggested that the quintessential step of making fishing into a sport, rather than just a means of catching fish for food, was the invention of the rod. It is considered a sport, then when practised for enjoyment. Anglers sometimes attempt to catch only one type of fish, in our case the Carp, often limiting their equipment to increase the sport – Sports commonly refer to activities where the physical capabilities of the competitor are the sole or primary determiner of the outcome\u201d.<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n