"Natural fish/cultivated fish" and national records.

[Gary Bills]

When does a record become meaningless? - perhaps when, in a scientific way, it says nothing about the natural world. Allow me to elaborate.
When Roger Bannister broke the four minute mile, the world was informed of a new level of human achievement. Bannister's achievement told us something we did not know beforehand: concerning the limits of the human body and human endeavour. In a similar manner, when Walker caught Ravioli/Clarissa at Redmire, the UK woke up to the fact that carp could grow naturally to an immense size in British waters. Walker's record then, like Bannister's, was of great scientific interest and value.
Now, if Bannister had been taking performance enhancing drugs, his achievement would have told us very little concerning the natural limits of the human body, and the world would have felt cheated. Likewise, if Walker had merely landed a fish that had been stocked big into Redmire, - a carp that had been fed artificially beforehand, to make it huge - his achievement would have had far less relevance as a scientific record.
And records mean nothing unless they have scientific value: that is why, originally, records of the natural world were kept.
It is about time, therefore, that anglers demand a distinction between natural and cultivated fish, when it comes down to rod-caught records?
A carp's skeletal growing period is in the region of 13/15 years - so why fish a water where the fish have only been stocked more recently than that? I would say that 15 years in a water, as a provable fact, is a starting point to decide whether a big fish is "wild" or not. Otherwise it should be classified as a "cultivated" carp, or at least unproven.
This would rule out any claims on the record by fish shipped in from France or grown on in large tanks. I find it incredible that some commercial fisheries now use automated boilie guns to blast out bait into lakes night and day, and so feed up the carp stocks. These fish cannot be considered other than cultivated carp, in my view, and any "record" fish caught from such waters should only be greeted with a knowing smile.
Haven't we reached an incredible point where, say, a 60lb carp from Redmire would almost certainly be the largest rod-caught "natural" carp in the UK - and yet, it would not hold the record...

[Weyfarer]

I agree with you totally but is it not a fact that fish records these days do not have anything other than a minor impact on the angling world? I do not know what the current records are for most species but 30 years ago, well I knew them all. I guess I align myself with those who say that a record is simply a fact that has been recorded because it happened.

[Gary Bills]

I agree with you totally but is it not a fact that fish records these days do not have anything other than a minor impact on the angling world? I do not know what the current records are for most species but 30 years ago, well I knew them all. I guess I align myself with those who say that a record is simply a fact that has been recorded because it happened.

Yes, Wayfarer, I agree totally with your last point - we should record that a cultivated fish has been landed at such-and-such a weight, and that a natural fish has been landed at such-and-such a weight. At least, then, records then might start to mean something again to anglers. As it is, I can see a future when the record barbel, for instance, will weigh 25lb and live on angler's boilies in a commercial stillwater..

[Snape]

I agree with you totally but is it not a fact that fish records these days do not have anything other than a minor impact on the angling world? I do not know what the current records are for most species but 30 years ago, well I knew them all. I guess I align myself with those who say that a record is simply a fact that has been recorded because it happened.

Agree.
I also lost interest when it was just the same fish gradually getting fatter (ie Two tone or The traveller (never seemed to travel very far!)). Wasn't there some suggestion that the last chub to break the record had been grown on in a pond? A record perch or pike seems to a different matter though.

[Gary Bills]

I agree with you totally but is it not a fact that fish records these days do not have anything other than a minor impact on the angling world? I do not know what the current records are for most species but 30 years ago, well I knew them all. I guess I align myself with those who say that a record is simply a fact that has been recorded because it happened.

Agree.
I also lost interest when it was just the same fish gradually getting fatter (ie Two tone or The traveller (never seemed to travel very far!)). Wasn't there some suggestion that the last chub to break the record had been grown on in a pond? A record perch or pike seems to a different matter though.

With all species, even with pike and perch, where there is a chance of commercial gain and kudos, I fear that the writing could be on the wall regarding the increasing cultivated nature of the fish we land. This is why I think we need two record lists, so that we can safely ignore one and re-establish some sporting values...

[Weyfarer]

There were two lists for trout but I don't know if that is still the case. I remember there being much heated debate at the time (1960s?) when small, commercial (sound familiar?) rainbow stocked ponds started to appear.

[The Sweetcorn Kid]

Records aren’t important to me anymore, apart from my own personal records. All I want to achieve from my fishing is to enjoy myself, set myself targets and to do things on my terms.

The carp fishing world is in limbo at present, no new record carp to fish for, it just doesn’t exist, well not as far as we know, so it’s about sitting around, trying to catch a whacker whilst waiting until something big turns up. Not for me but each to their own.

This is why there is controversy surrounding certain lakes, talk of importing fish that can topple the current record and fish that can grow on to overshadow anything we have seen before, but this would cause so much stir that the same would happen that we have already seen happen with the catfish and grass carp records.

I’m more than happy to let the world do their thing, I am focussed to what I want out of my fishing, that’s all that really matters to me.

[J.T]

Records aren’t important to me anymore, apart from my own personal records. All I want to achieve from my fishing is to enjoy myself, set myself targets and to do things on my terms.

The carp fishing world is in limbo at present, no new record carp to fish for, it just doesn’t exist, well not as far as we know, so it’s about sitting around, trying to catch a whacker whilst waiting until something big turns up. Not for me but each to their own.

This is why there is controversy surrounding certain lakes, talk of importing fish that can topple the current record and fish that can grow on to overshadow anything we have seen before, but this would cause so much stir that the same would happen that we have already seen happen with the catfish and grass carp records.

I’m more than happy to let the world do their thing, I am focussed to what I want out of my fishing, that’s all that really matters to me.

Very well said Stu, exactly the same way I feel. :thumb:

[Gary Bills]

Agreed SK - I have absolutely no wish, and no chance (!), of breaking a record - and it doesn't bother me one bit: but I still feel that if we are to have records, we need the distinction between natural and cultivated fish...

[The Sweetcorn Kid]

In an ideal world, yes, but this is far from an ideal world and as long as we have anglers looking for big fish captures to achieve their new sponsorship deal it will never be the way we'd like it to be. I'm afraid it has turned in to a business, for the most part anyway, and as soon as that happens, the purists will suffer.