Carp colouration?

[Gary Bills]

A similar technique, perhaps, to that displayed by the squid and the octopus...?

Or chameleon maybe.

Indeed, Snape.

[Mike Wilson]

Agree with Shaun however you may also like to consider the following.
I've caught carp which I know have never been caught before. On landing they looked very pale, some with a two tone affect but on resting on the net for a few minutes whilst I set up the camera they changed very quickly to the 'normal' Leney carp stocked [Savay] 1950 and 51 dark colour. At the time we put this down to shock [on capture]. Be interested in your thoughts. The fish were all over 25lbs.

Mike

[Shaun Harrison]

Hi Mike,

I'm certainly no expert on this just a practical, casual observer that tends to notice things and take things on board. I have seen two tone fish on the bank that certainly weren't two tone in the water whilst being played but also seen two tone and a lot of quarter tone (two tone only on one side only) that always remain that way and can be seen swimming around as two tone.

I'm sure the pale situation when first landed is a shock reaction to being caught. I have seen a few fish that have been retained for a short period in a sack come out much darker than they went in which is a total opposite of what I said in previous posts should happen. Dark water should lighten the skin.

I very much think we have two different situations here. We have the carp in its natural environment not feeling stress being basically dark coloured in clear water and pale coloured in murky water.

Stick a hook in them and a slight panic mode sets in (hopefully no anti anglers reading this) which appears to affect different fish in different ways. Retain them for a while and if they calm down (some remain panicky) they generally revert back to their 'natural colour'.

One observation I have made is that out of all of the two tone and quarter tone carp I have landed all have been pale at the head end and dark at the tail end. I have never caught one the other way round.
I have popped a couple of pictures up just in case some aren't sure what I mean by two-tone. The fish I have used to illustrate this was a 1984 capture above as a double and then I returned to the water 11 years later and caught it at 30lb plus. I'm not into repeat capturing fish but it was nice to see that one again.





As an afterthought I perhaps should have hunted out a picture of a long two tone common - hands up. That carp is a bit of a lardy but came to an end that no carp should ever come to.
The water on the reservoir I caught it from was lowered for work on the dam and this fish was found dead, tethered to some ones rig that was tangled on a willow tree. The poor fish was unable to break free because the willow had in effect played it out.

[Mike Wilson]

Interesting Shaun.

Once I saw a fish that was being played by a friend [Savay again] when suddenly all went solid however on slowly reeling in the angler bought to the bank a very dead leather We assumed it died of shock or heart attack whilst being played. I would not have believed it if I didn't see it with my own eyes. The fish weighed 24lbs from memory and was about 25 years old. Have never ever heard of this happening anywhere else.

Mike

[Shaun Harrison]

I saw one have what looked like a 'fit' on the bank. Suddenly it bristled and tensed as they do at times but remained that way with its mouth wide and not moving at all. There were a few anglers around not really sure what to make of it or what to do. One of those present suddenly stepped forward and slapped the fish which incredibly brought it out of the state it was in. I'm sure it was having a fit of sorts or even perhaps a heart attack I guess. I questioned said angler who slapped it. He had never seen a fish do that before but thought what he would do to a person in what appeared to be shock. He slapped it and it came round.

I'm not sure that fish would have survived otherwise. At the end of the day, they are living creatures prone to vital organs stopping at any time.

Long term current Savay member Dave Booth landed a dead one at Hemmingford Grey, (Waterways Pit) in the 70's and a different species but the first Zander I ever landed had shook its head a couple of times whilst winding it in but never flinched at all in the net or on the bank. That was dead.

Sadly I think we will see more of this as there are now some very old carp out there under a lot of pressure on some venues.

[Gary Bills]

This seems to go back rather a long while, in carping history: in "Woldale", Ingham explains why his 17lb mirror actually ended up dead. The rather make-shift net collapsed at the lift, after a battle of over six hours (!). On the bank, the fish was found to be dead - probably a heart attack caused by the extraordinary length of the battle, the netting, and the breaking net? It's a fair guess that, had the fish survived, it would have gone back. Ingham is a personal hero of mine. Due to inexperience, he played the fish on 3lb line(or so) - as it he explains, he would never make that tactical mistake again at Woldale or anywhere else... he regretted the incident to the end of his life. Thankfully, as we know, carp dying like this are a very rare occurence, aren't they?

[SparrowHawk]

The image in my mind of someone giving a carp a 'slap' i find somewhat amusing.what was your reaction shaun?
We have a mid twenty which tenses up when caught and goes quite red,its as if it gets angry and has a kind of 'incredible hulk' type reaction to being caught.It can be troublesome to put back and have seen it turn over a few times,it has had to be retrieved several times and nursed like a barbel before it swam away happily.Its nickname is 'the red 'un'

[Shaun Harrison]

To be fair my first reaction was 'What the...'

Then when I saw the carp immediately come back to like so to speak I was nothing but relieved as I thought we had a dead carp on our hands. The person who hit it I would hasten to add had been in this game since the 70's, knows his stuff and was the first time he had ever done it. I have never seen a fish do this since not for the length of the said fish did. We had all passed comment that it had died, I'm not talking seconds here it was in that state just staring straight out (carp usually look down unless blind) mouth wide open and not moving and stiff as a board for quite some time.

It swam off fine after it had come round.

[Skeff]

Another fascinating thread....

So we have three observations here:

1. General colouration - In my experience carp adapt quite quickly to changing light levels and water turbidity in particular. Ashmead is clay based and rain fed and can vary from gin clear to heavily coloured (milky) very quickly as a result of fish feeding or after rain. The most dramatic change was when we connected Goat Willow pool into the rest of the wetland after restoration and the stock density dropped dramatically as a result, along with a dramatic increase in water clarity. The fish change colour in response as the two pictures below of our biggest fish show...


2. Colour change in relation to stress - I've seen this quite often, particularly with the two tone effect Shaun describes, which we see in some of the Ashmead fish on capture. Interestingly the same individuals always react like this, whilst other carp never do. The most extreme example I know of was suffered by someone who invested £24,000 in a Koi with a particularly rare and dramatic colouration and scale pattern, only to have it turn jet black (permanently) during the flight back to the UK....


3. Death in the net - Sadly we lost one of our oldest residents a couple of years ago when it literally died in the net before the eyes of one of the members after an apparently healthy fight. The carp had been seen regularly and looked in the peak of health. No obvious cause of death and we put it down to a heart attack. The poor fellow (the angler!) was devastated as it was his first Ashmead fish and his first 30... If only I'd heard of the "slap" technique, who knows? If it ever happens again, I'll be giving it a go!

[Shaun Harrison]

They look so much better living in clear water don't they?

That big fish looks like it must be a battler when hooked, a great solid looking table fish.

That last remark is very tongue in cheek as personally I really like mirrors after years of catching perfect Shropshire commons, I simply enjoy the individuality.