Updated September 2026. British carp fishing has a long tradition of naming individual fish, and this culture says a great deal about how anglers relate to the carp they target, sometimes over many years. How Naming Started The practice grew out of specimen hunting in...
Updated September 2026. Otter fencing has become a familiar sight around UK carp waters, and understanding why fisheries invest so heavily in it explains a great deal about how a venue is run and priced. Otters in the UK Otter numbers have recovered substantially...
Updated September 2026. Barbless hooks are now standard on the large majority of carp waters, but the welfare case behind the rule is worth understanding properly rather than simply accepted as a fishery formality. The Claims The core argument for barbless hooks is...
Updated September 2026. Summer heat changes the welfare calculation for every carp caught, and small adjustments to handling and timing make a meaningful difference to how well a fish recovers from being caught at all. Oxygen and Stress Warm water holds significantly...
Updated September 2026. Retention divides opinion in carp fishing more than almost any other practice, and while it remains legal and common on many waters, understanding the welfare considerations properly helps anglers make a genuinely informed choice. Why Anglers...
Updated September 2026. Recognising common carp health issues matters for every angler, both for handling a fish correctly on the bank and for knowing when a mark is cosmetic, self-healing, or something a fishery genuinely needs to know about. Hook Damage and Mouth...
Gear · Carp care · Updated September 2026 The Best Carp Care Kit: Mats, Cradles, Slings, Scales and Antiseptic The kit that keeps a carp safe from the net to the release, reviewed and ranked. What you need for your first session, what to upgrade to, and...
Updated September 2026. Every carp you catch in the UK is the same species, Cyprinus carpio, with one exception covered at the end. Commons, mirrors, leathers, ghosts and koi are not different species but different scale patterns and colour forms of the same fish,...
For a few weeks every late spring the carp in most UK lakes stop being fish you are trying to catch and become fish you are watching. Spawning is noisy, obvious and short, and the fishing on either side of it can be the best of the year. This is when it happens, how...
Every March the same question goes round: is there a close season for carp? The honest answer is yes and no, and the difference is where you are fishing. This page sets out where the statutory close season applies, where it does not, why it exists, and how the...
Most of the rules that govern carp fishing in the UK are simple, but they are scattered across the Environment Agency, the fisheries themselves and three different licensing systems, and every season people fall foul of one they did not know existed. This page is the...
A great photograph of a carp capture is a record that lasts a lifetime. But bankside photography that doesn’t prioritise fish safety is also one of the most preventable causes of fish stress and injury. This guide covers how to take sharp, well-composed fish...
