Records

[Rivercarper]

Who would have imagined a few years ago that the Barbel record would be nearly 20lb and the bream record nearly 19lb.
Just where are these amazing growth rates going to end or will these two outstanding fish hold the records for a few years.My thoughts are that the Barbel record will go over 20lb quite quickly into the new season but the bream record will take some beating.

[SAMR]

i think the barbel record could go quickly but i don't really know about the bream.
i remember looking in a mag a few years ago and it was going on about 20lb barbel and it seemed out of this world at the time.
some records i can't really see going at the moment are the eel, roach, rudd and tench records.
sam

<font color=red>S</font color=red><font color=blue>A</font color=blue><font color=green>M</font color=green>

[SteveE]

Wow, that was some Bream.

Will this encourage more people to fish for Bream instead of Carp?

How big do you think the bream are at RMC waters?

[Rivercarper]

Steve you have some of the best of RMC's Bream fishing on your doorstep.

[Tom]

Why do you think it is that most of the records for coarse fish have increased in the last 20 to 30 years? Is it due to more and better quality food being fed to the fish, richer habitats developing as many of the pits are maturing or better angling leading resulting in better catches?

Tom

[scorpio]

It's most certainly the baits being used and lesser maybe the maturity of the pits. When you look at a lot of the carp they have real big guts on them, never used to look like that. The bream as we know feed on the high nutritional carp baits.

The other species have not really changed a lot. The RMC Roach record has been standing for yonks. With the barbel I also think this is down to bait as well.

Tony

[DOC]

I am not convinced that bait alone is the answer. Barbel is a possible exception, where they seem to take off in weight when their wherabouts is discovered and the bait flies in. There was a hint in your comment about pit maturity, because along with this goes fish maturity ! Carp live a long time and there are many more about now. All they can do is get bigger and bigger given enough food (not necessarily bait). Barbel are also quite long lived and many of the really big ones that make the news are probably getting on a bit now.

But what about tench and bream. They are also much bigger than they were fifteen years ago, and not just in the pits that see piles of bait. Frimley pit 4 for example, where the bream seem to average 10 lb and the tench possibly not far off ! Its rich water of course, but were there no such waters a few years ago ? This pit is nowhere near farm land and so can't have received abnormally high levels of fertilizers etc Or can it ? Then there's the mild winters that see more feeding overall during a year perhaps ?

It's almost as if you can apply a different reason on the growth of each species : carp-age, bait; barbel-age, bait; chub-crayfish, bait maybe; perch-crayfish, no disease yet; tench and bream-competition, age, abnormal nutrients ? Its all conjecture of course. Perhaps its all an illusion, and the real reason is that cormorants have eaten all the small fish and so anglers catch fewer but bigger fish. All the bigger still through less competition ?

[John_H]

Are they actually growing bigger, or were the bigger fish (or at least some...) always there but now anglers are more adept at catching them ?

A 16lb barbel was taken from the Hants Avon in 1960-61 but not recognised as the rod caught record because it was foulhooked. Dick Walker and Pete Thomas always said there were far bigger carp in Redmire than Walkers 44lber - 70lb was a figure mentioned.

With the tench, their size seemed to take off after the cold winter of '62-3 (dunno why...??)

And, while the numbers of anglers may be declining, it seems to me that skill levels generally are increasing and the skill and knowledge of the average middle of the road angler in 2001 would have made him seen as a real expert 25 years ago. Not to mention guys spending days at a time at a water which was very rare in earlier times.

Add to this the factors mentioned above like more gravel pits to fish in and a run of mild winters since the mid-80s and maybe there's the answer ?

[fatboy]

Picking on one point you made about the time spent on waters in pursuit of large fish. Just take Wraysbury 1 for example. Here is a large pit which is rich in natural food, with a relatively small head of fish per acre. I jokingly said to a mate of mine about 20 years ago that this lake probably contained record fish of most stillwater species which has been proved right on a couple of accasions, but the sheer scale of it put most people off. We now know how much effort it takes to catch these large fish through the well documented accounts ot these captures (to whom I take my hat off). If anglers put in the effort to pursue bream on this water I personally feel the rewards are there. I have seen some monstrous bream on this water, but that, as I said was 20 years ago. I have no idea of the longevity of these fish, but I think the conditions are perfect for this water to produce and a 20lb fish is a reality.

If only I had the time...................../images/forum/icons/frown.gif

[horse]

Fish weight have gone up in the past ten years that i have been fishing.The way i look at it is that many of the pits that we fish where dig for the gravel for the motorways and after the war to repair the damage that had been done, this is all 50 years ago, this lakes/pits are now starting to mature.I think also that records are getting bigger do to the amount of anglers there is also the fact that we are looking for constitient improvement, the tackle we use the ability of the anglers is improving everyday, the fact that we have full time anglers these days.I agree with doc on the issue that the fish where there years ago but they where just not caught.
In carp terms the amount of bait that we have been putting in and the quality of it will put weight on the fish including bream, tench, even the roach and rudd, with the quality of the silver fish getting bigger the pike will grow as well, what about waters where fish are seen but not caught, i read about bream in holland that had got to 15+ but where never caught, they have got that big on naturals, same goes for our fish many are getting big on naturals.
Look at the climate changes, i have noticed a change, thing are getting warmer, the winters are no longer as long or as cold, this will help fish growths, summer is getting latter and latter, still getting the nice weather into octember.
Fish records will keep being broken, if all of these factors are anything to do with it all.

Horse
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[Crispy]

Horse

I think you need to lay off the spicy ones mate!

Crispy

[horse]

Explain crispy, (spicy what) i don't eat curry.
keeping it english in my belly.
Horse
/images/forum/icons/laugh.gif/images/forum/icons/smile.gif/images/forum/icons/laugh.gif/images/forum/icons/laugh.gif

[Crispy]

Horse

it was going down hill right to when you said octember mate, just made me laugh out loud, spicy ones - carp fags!?!?!?!

Crispy
Made In England
(E.C.H.O)

[horse]

AH i understand now.Spelling & grammer is not my fortay, I am an engineering student.
LOL/images/forum/icons/laugh.gif/images/forum/icons/laugh.gif
horse

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1>Edited by horse on 17/05/01 05:36 PM (server time).</FONT></P>

[loki]

everybod noes injuneers is fick init.

[loki]

I suspect that the large quantities of bait going in, particularly into small to medium sized carp lakes, contributes not only to the overall size of the fish, but the number of large fish supported by the lake. Would it be fair to assume that if the bait stopped going in the fish would lose weight, or in some cases die because the water could not sustain the same quantity of fish naturally? On this basis does artificial feeding (bait) figure in stock management?

[Big_Rik]

A lake local to me has seen predictable growth rates in the carp for several years, 3 years ago some good catches were made over large beds of boilies and this then became a trend.
The increase in weights of the fish went from about 1.5lb a year, to 3lb.
Last year saw a massive increase in Red Band (and similar) being used and the fish weights have dropped off noticably.

In smaller waters, where the stock levels have been managed, then I believe that good quality bait plays an important part in fish weights.

[scorpio]

I know a commercial fishery when the anglers are not in numbers he feeds his fish on pellets to sustain them. He told me that his waters are not rich enough to sustain the number of fish he has in there.

Tony