Carping like a monk

 

There's an old ditty which claims that "Carps and turkeys, hops and beer, came to England all in a year." 

I have no means by which to test the veracity of the claim, but if true would declare it to have been a very good year. I may be agnostic when it comes to turkeys, but the bringing to these shores of both carp and beer seems to me to be worthy of celebration. What we do know is that carp were in these isles in the 15th Century, and that no-one was more responsible for their introduction and proliferation than my pre-Reformation forebears, the monks. Monasteries had stew-ponds holding carp, and on Fridays friars and novices fished for them to provide their supper.

The carp the monks knew bore little resemblance to the pot bellied forms of king carp that dominate modern British angling, but were long, lean, torpedo shaped fish, and in time their progeny came to be known as "wild carp" or "wildies" to distinguish them from subsequent  waves of European invaders. There are now very few carp swimming in our waters carrying the DNA of the true wildie, but they enjoy a reverence from their devotees which borders on worship. All of which brings me to the Club Lake.

I belong to a small club which holds the lease on just one lake, a lake containing carp which have the look of the traditional English carp (if one can speak in such a way of an originally non-native species). They are, of course, not true wildies, but have acquired their characteristic looks on account of their prodigious fertility, which has led to over-population of the lake and stunted growth, but I really don't mind in the slightest. I've caught plenty of bigger fish in my younger days, when such things mattered more, and now middle aged and freed from the need to always "catch bigger",  I rather like the way these faux wildies aesthetically complement my vintage rods and reels.

I may never catch a true wild carp, but as I admire one of the small but hard fighting (pound for pound- or possibly ounce for ounce- the Club Lake carp are amongst the feistiest  I've ever tangled with) inhabitants of the Club Lake before slipping it safely back from whence it came, I am looking at a fish that would have been recognisable to, and brought a smile to the face of one of those 15th Century monks angling for his evening meal, and that, in turn, is enough to bring a smile to mine, too.