Are common carp more intelligent?

Question: What is it with common carp? Do you lads reckon they are a different animal? We have all heard about the mythical commons that swim around in certain lakes and obviously some of these rumours are nothing but bullsh*t but some of these rumours are also without doubt true. I know there are some mirrors that avoid being captured for years but the vast majority of stories are about commons and just like the sightings of aliens and ghosts, can they ALL be a load of crap? I’m not just talking about BIG commons here either and I’ll give you a couple of examples now.

Years ago, back when Longfield was drained, it threw up a good number of commons in the nets that just didn’t get caught. Yes, the odd one graced the bank, but even that was rare. Take ‘The Mere’; I had four proper years fishing over there and a vast majority of the time I was there on my own. I definitely saw a common (at very close quarters) that was as near as damn it to the size of The Black Mirror and this was at a time before the BM had ever been caught. I had these two immense fish feeding side-by-side and could see every detail about it very clearly. In subsequent years some very big 40lb+ commons were caught but these were the same commons that Alan and myself had caught years before at between 25 and 35lb.

When it all went tragically wrong over there, a huge common was found and I have no idea exactly how big this fish was estimated to be, but from talking to some of the lads that had fished it in its later years, its description certainly didn’t fit any of the known ones!

Look at Redmire, when it was first seriously fished the amount of stories of huge commons that were written about is well documented, but how many got caught? Dick Walker’s capture of Clarissa obviously stands out and Chris Yates’s huge spawn-bound one that wasn’t really a ‘true’ giant if you get me, but how many more swam in its depths but never saw the bank?

So can it be that these fish are more intelligent (for want of a better word) than the rest of the stock in a lake, or could it be that these are indeed less ‘intelligent” and just don’t tune-in to anglers baits and continually feed, more often than not on the natural food? It’s one of those conundrums that will probably never get answered but I’d like to hear your views.

Ahh, the old mythical big common. I’ve always been quite lucky with big commons and whenever I’ve known for certain that one’s present I’ve not really found much difference between fishing for that or fishing for a big mirror. I can think of other waters I’ve fished in the past, where there’s been rumours of a big, uncaught common, but most of the time they do turn out to be just that: rumours. Colne Mere’s big common is one that, even today, I’m still unsure about. I saw it swimming about for myself, whilst also looking at The Black Mirror from the same tree, and being honest it absolutely blew my mind. Alan Taylor saw it at the same time, and we both agreed that it was huge!

The thing is, I’ve since seen and then gone on to catch carp at other venues, which although appearing huge in the water, once on the bank they’ve not been as big as I’d first thought. I remember Ev having a similar experience on the Northern Cole Mere, where for at least a couple of years he was chasing two big, unknown commons. One he called The Bull Common, because it was short, stocky and wide, and the other one was longer but not so wide in shape. Of the two it was The Bull Common that he talked about most, even going so far as to draw its unusual shape from above for me on a bit of paper. On one occasion he’d actually had it swim right past him as he’d been placing a rig on a shallow beach-like area. Seriously, he was obsessed with catching it, ninety-odd-acres of truly ancient mere containing only half-a-dozen carp, a proper, proper challenge.

Funny enough, it was one of this month’s contributors (see over page), Jamie Clossick, who caught that old Bull Common first, and if I remember rightly it was around 33lb. Both Jamie and Ev went on to catch the other big common too, estimated in the water as the smaller of the two, and it was actually several pounds heavier at scraper forty! Sometimes a carp’s shape can make it appear much larger than it really is.

Going back to that Colne Mere common that Al and I saw, from memory it had a similar, boxy shape to the Northern Cole Mere’s Bull Common: wide and deep, but not very long. When I saw your shots of the biggest common you caught during your earlier Colne Mere days at mid-thirty, Jay, the one with the nick in the bottom of its tail, I felt pretty sure that it was the huge common that Al and I had seen a few years on from your capture, particularly when you think that, just like the huge mythical common, your mid-thirty wasn’t a fish that Alan and I, or any of the other lads fishing The Mere had caught at that time. It made sense to me that it was the missing link.

I can think of many waters I’ve fished in the past, where there’s been rumours of a big, uncaught common, but most of the time they do turn out to be just that: rumours. Colne Mere’s Big Common is one that, even today, I’m still unsure about

Probably two years after I’d stopped fishing there I remember Dave Mallin catching a common of 38lb. It was fairly plump and tight, and I was pretty sure it was a different fish to the one Al and I had seen. I don’t remember trying to match it up to any previous captures, but I’m guessing that particular fish was one of the others that had come on, or maybe a different fish entirely.

I’m almost certain that Dave Mallin’s 38lb common passed away, along with a couple of others during floods in 2000; I seem to remember Tetley and Al finding it, either dead or looking very poorly. Around the same time they chased some carp up the track, back into the lakes, most likely Cargill escapees. It did go on to do at least another two commons over 40lb after that though, one of which I believe was a 28lber pictured in my first book. The other was a 44lber, a fish I’m told was your boxy-shaped one with the nick in its tail, though I never saw the pics or got to confirm it myself. I was also told that it looked a bit spawned out, i.e. it was a very big fish frame wise and at another time in the year may have been much heavier. Personally I think that this was The Mere’s mythical ‘Big Common’, the one with the nick in its tail, and at the time of mine and Alan Taylor’s sighting several years earlier, it was probably a big thirty… though it definitely looked much, much bigger. Being honest, I’m still not sure now. If Al reads this then I just know he’ll be shaking his head thinking otherwise!

Northern Cole Mere: ninety-odd-acres of truly ancient mere containing only half-a-dozen carp, a proper, proper challenge

When The Mere suffered turnover and pretty much everything perished, I never heard of any unknown monster commons being found myself, but if one was found I’d probably bet on it being the one with the nick out of its tail. Then again, who knows…

Another water where there seemed to be some truth in the big unknown common story was at The Big Pit, a water fairly local to home. I saw shots of a long, mid-thirty common from there a few years before I went on to fish it, and though I never caught any commons of that sort of size myself, during the summer between the two winters that I fished, I remember a reliable friend, Carl, telling me about a huge common which he’d watched and fed in some snags to one side of his swim. He was convinced it was mid-forties, and at that time I only knew of a couple of other decent commons in the lake which would have made thirty, let alone mid forty, so I couldn’t see how he could have been that far out. Sometimes it’s nice to be left with a little mystery.