The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Does anyone have a ballpark figure of how many lakes still have proper Leney carp in them in the UK ? I see Chris Ball is a member of the forum, maybe he'll drop in and let us know. Or Mike Wilson ?

I wouldn't have a clue but Chris might as he has all the stocking records. Problem is ,of course, many of those fish have gone to the big pond in the sky. Added to that many waters are just not suitable for carp to breed successfully although they will spawn. So many factors are required for fry survival.

Mike

Agreed that it would be a very difficult one to pin point, take Harry's Pool (APFA) for example, not very well heard of but was stocked. Then you'll have the ones stocked for cash jobs, under the counter work that always takes place. We could probably, between us, build a fairly comprehensive list of the ones we know. Saying that, there could be some that aren't on the radar for reasons unbeknown to us, perhaps some are preferred to be kept a secret, so with that in mind, perhaps we'llnever know.

But, as Mike said, when Chris logs on next, I'm sure he'll be able to shed some light on it.

There are a few places that breed pure leneys, a good friend of bamfs breeds from fish taken from Donalds stock ponds. They are lovely looking fish. I'm not too starry eyed about the strain of carp, so long as they are 'old fashioned' type (if you know what I mean). Leneys are generally speaking the best looking to me tho!!

There are said to be Leney/Redmire Commons in some of the Yateley complex, I had this common from the Match Lake last season and you can clearly see those classic characteristics..................

What a common SK. :thumb: Only in my dreams.

Caractacus Potts wrote:Does anyone have a ballpark figure of how many lakes still have proper Leney carp in them in the UK ? I see Chris Ball is a member of the forum, maybe he'll drop in and let us know. Or Mike Wilson ?

This question is is not easy to answer, from the heyday of the Surrey Trout Farm stockings of the 1950-1955 period many ten of thousands of ‘King carp’ were placed into a wide variety of lakes, gravel pits and rivers in this country. Some venues had a habitat which was unsuitable, in others heavy predation took place.

So though there were huge amount of fingerling's stocked in this magical period now 60 years on the amount of carp left would be small. Sure there would have a been many a successful spawning in that period of time, equally those very same waters which were stocked with ‘Leney’s’ would have been re-stocked after with a variety of different sorts of carp. This would introduce a ‘wild card’ factor and make any spawned survivors doubtful in the scheme of things regarding the Galalican race.

Through all this sounds a bit dour, remarkably some original fish still survive but to put a figure on it would be iffy. Only this summer one of the highly prized Frensham small pond carp (Double Row) passed over. This carp was almost certainly from the November 1952 stocking carried out quite probably by Donald Leney himself (Frensham being in the locality of the Haslemere fish farm’s headquarters.

So all I can say is that some still swims our waters, through the figure is dwindling - sadly.

PS Harry’s Monster lake as featured in Passion for Angling succumbed to the otters some while back and there are no carp left. Though Hugh Miles tells me it may be re-stocked with carp. Also Harry Teasdale (the keeper in the film) died some years back.

Christ, I’m all sweetness and light this afternoon!

Chris Ball wrote:PS Harry’s Monster lake as featured in Passion for Angling succumbed to the otters some while back and there are no carp left. Though Hugh Miles tells me it may be re-stocked with carp. Also Harry Teasdale (the keeper in the film) died some years back.

Tragic!

That is a sad tale on more then one level.

A toast to both Harry's is in order tonight.