The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Since all native land locked fish in the UK originally came from rivers through flooding and other 'recent' geological processes , I very much doubt that Crucians are native fish otherwise populations of them would be found in rivers. I would guess they were introduced into those ponds sometime during the last 1000 years, possibly by the Romans or the Saxons. However, there may well have been crucians and all manner of other carp species in the UK before the last ice age but being less hardy than other species they would have found it difficult to re-establish themselves as the climate warmed; and thus the British Isles became cut off from mainland Europe some 11,000 years ago before our climate was sufficiently warm enought for them to swim and breed along the much colder river stretches that flowed out of europe and into the Atlantic through the UK. Thus colder species thrived in the our Isles because they re-establised themselves as the climate warmed and before the rivers from europe stopped flowing over this land and into the north sea like they do today!! Put briefly, they did'nt make it here before the sea levels rose and cut us off from mainland europe!! A similar thing happened in Ireland and that's why there are no snakes in that country (nothing to do with St Patrick). But crucians may well have been native before the last ice age!!!! (my dates may be out but I think the rest is correct)

BL,

I haven't fished Blackweir yet, but if its got Cru's i'm there.

Gaz

From what I understand you are right there BigFish but an interesting point about crucians is that they don't like flowing water at all (they do exist in the wide lake sections of Swedish rivers) so after the last ice age how did they redistribute themselves back to their strongholds in Germany and Scandinavia anyway. An intriguing fish in many ways.

Bluelabel wrote:I thought that Blackweir (The Lost Pond) was the Crucian Capital round these parts.... (it was in my day)

I believe your right.
I am fortunate in being able to fish a private lake in Essex that hold True english crucian carp

If anyone knows of any proper crucian waters in South Dorset I'd be very interested, the best I've found is Breech near Wareham and they are very thin on the ground in there.

Looks as though the next Epping fish-in might be organising itself...

I'm off crucian carp fishing on Sunday to a friends stick pond, I'll ask if they're kosha!

JohnL wrote:If anyone knows of any proper crucian waters in South Dorset I'd be very interested, the best I've found is Breech near Wareham and they are very thin on the ground in there.

There are waters with crucians but not much good crucian fishing!

Despite fishing Breach since 1970 I've yet to get a crucian from it. I witnessed a couple about 10 years ago at 2-8 and 2-10 which were the remnants of a fish rescue from another pond that was filled in circa 1993 and that had been stocked in about 1991 with fish supplied by Peter Rolfe. CAC restocked crucians a couple of years ago with 500 small fish but I haven't heard of any being caught. The water has been hit by cormorants the last couple of years.

At one time there were crucians (to 4oz) and brown goldfish (to 1-8) in Creekmoor pond in Poole but I don't know of anyone fishing there for years. Wimborne's Triangle pond did have a lot of small crucians but I haven't fished it for a couple of years and the stock had declined drastically. Ringwood stocked a water near Bournemouth Airport with true crucians more than a decade ago but they bred with the carp; maybe some true ones left that are over 2lbs if you can get through the carp/F1s and stunted skimmers.

My son had a crucian from Breach of 3lb, in 2' of water in the margins on a bright hot sunny day. There were an identacle pair there and he managed to stalk one of them. I've got a few waters here with crucians in but no way of getting through the masses of carp to target them and how true their heritage is I'm not sure.

Regarding the lack of (or supposed) crucians in rivers. Never accept lack of recorded captures as definite proof of a lack of that species. I still cling to fervent hope that there are burbot in some forgotten back water somewhere just waiting to repopulate our waterways