THE ULTIMATE ANGLING BUCKET LIST

There is also a rounded dark spot near the base of the tail, but often this will be indistinct as it merges
in with the other colours present, and in some fish, it may not even show at all.
BROWN GOLDFISH Carassius auratus
Bucket List status – result
The brown goldfish, prussian carp, or
gibel carp, call it what you will, is
another Asiatic import now common
across Europe, and the closest living
wild relative of the many dozens of
different breeds of goldfish you see in
garden ponds and aquarium shops
today.
In some ways it's like the relationship
between wolves and the many
modern breeds of dog whose form has
been engineered by specific trait
selection during mating.
Lundy Island Prussian Carp
Record Fish Committee for you.
Personally, I prefer the term prussian
carp, as brown goldfish is a two word
contradiction. But that's the British
As regards identification, simply imagine a typical fair-ground prize goldfish in a dark olive brown
livery. Adding a bit of fine detail to that, a fish with a slightly more elongate and less heavily built body
layout than the crucian carp to which it is related.
The key points to look out for are strongly serrated spines at the start of the dorsal and anal fin, plus no
diffuse dark mark towards the base of the tail which the crucian carp, certainly at the smaller to midrange
sizes typically has.
A fish known to do well in poorly oxygenated waters, which links in very nicely to my experiences of
the species.
While discussing the common carp earlier, I recalled a day when Graeme Pullen and I stumbled across
a small rocky hole filled with pea green water on top of a cliff on Lundy Island where we saw evidence
of fish, though not the fish themselves, and allowed our natural curiosity to take over.
The problem was that we were on Lundy investigating the sea angling potential, and at that stage on
our way back from wrasse fishing a rock ledge with just a few limpets and day old mackerel left overs,
coupled as you might expect to a complete lack of anything even remotely resembling freshwater
terminal tackle. So we cobbled together what we could and ended up catching around thirty small carp
which amused us greatly.
So much so that we laughed about it with some of the islanders back at base who then told us of another
even bigger pond and drew us a map, which the following morning, still armed with our shore tackle,
because it was all we had, we followed up on, taking with us some bread rolls from breakfast, and a
wicker bin from the room which we lined with a plastic bag to act as a keep net.
308