From the Archives - Contrary Crucians

This article is about a character in the fish world that I can only describe as contrary. Cuddly and contrary crucians, how else can you describe them, when they look so cute and cuddly but behave so erratically? Crucians are like a wild goldfish, plump, golden brown, pleasant looking, but downright unconventional, discordant and disobedient – contrary in other words!

Why contrary? Because they can take a bait so delicately there are more times than with any other species when you just don’t know they have taken the bait. You retrieve your tackle to bait up again, or just to make another cast, and find there is one on the end, hooked firmly in the lips. Other times they can haul a float under, or pull a quiver-tip round, almost like, well, dare I say it – a barbel!

I’ve had quite a number of sessions for crucian carp in the past few months and I intend to have the occasional go for them right through November, and perhaps even longer, depending on the weather. If there are not too many really severe frosts you can catch crucians right up to around Christmas time. In fact October and November can be the best months of the year for crucians if the weather is kind to us, and of course to them.

Crucians are generally found in small ponds, often in those tiny, overgrown farm ponds. The problem in such waters however, is that they tend to reproduce too much, too often, with the result that their numbers multiply until they become terribly stunted, to the point where many of them are misshapen, with twisted spines and other deformities. Considering what a beautiful fish the crucian can be, it seems to be an even greater sin to see them in such a state. They thrive much better in larger waters of two acres or more, sharing the water with other species like common carp and tench. The other species then help to keep the numbers down by consuming large amounts of crucian spawn before it has time to hatch, and then eating much of the offspring that survives to the fry stage. Not nice, I know, but it’s the law of the aquatic jungle, survival of the biggest, strongest and fittest.

Crucians grow to over 5lb in the very best waters, but the issue becomes cloudy where these exceptional specimens are found, for they have a tendency to cross with the common carp, and they are almost indistinguishable from the brown goldfish. The most famous case of this concerned the record ‘crucian’ which was recently removed from the record fish list when it was discovered from photographs that it was in fact a brown goldfish. The most distinguishing feature of the crucian is its lack of barbules on the mouth, for the common carp has two. Where brown goldfish are concerned, they have deep serrations on the spine and dorsal fins, whereas the crucian has very shallow serrations. Although it must be said that unless you have examined both species you wouldn’t know which one you are looking at, so mistakes are understandable. Hybridisation then complicates the issue to the point where only dissection can truly resolve the problem. But take the philosophy that I do – get out there and enjoy your fishing and only worry about if it’s a hybrid or a brown goldfish if you catch one to beat the record. Most of us will then have a trouble-free life catching true crucians.

Locating crucian carp is rarely a problem, for they are great margin wanderers and a groundbait trap in a suitable depth of water anywhere within a couple of rod lengths of the margins will sooner or later attract their attention. They have a liking for feeding along the edges of weedbeds, and if there are any distinct ledges along the margins then they usually favour these too. Ledges and edges of weedbeds usually go together anyhow.

One of the greatest problems with crucians isn’t to do with finding where they feed, or creating a feeding spot, it is in keeping them feeding for long enough to make a decent catch. They are restless little so-and-so’s, with a bad habit of feeding in short bursts and then moving on to pastures new. That’s the bad bit. The good bit is that it won’t be long before they return and have another go. Usually, this performance of short but frequent visits to the swim is the pattern for the day, and you can often set your watch by the regularity of the visits. I’ve found that each visit by the shoal is long enough to catch two to three fish before they move on. Time between visits varies from 15 minutes to an hour or so, no doubt depending on how hungry they are that day, and how far they wander before they do an about-turn and make their way back. On the very best days the time between visits is extremely short, almost to the point where they hardly vacate the swim at all.

Groundbaiting for crucians, no matter what you use, will not alter this wandering pattern, which does not mean to say that you should throw any old rubbish into the swim. Good groundbait will attract them more quickly, keep them feeding for longer, and bring them back more quickly. I use my usual mix of equal parts brown and white crumb and Expo, but then throw in a couple of handfuls of Expo (in a 2lb dry mix) to spice it up a little more, and then add a couple of handfuls of crushed hemp. Half a dozen golf ball size pieces and a few catapult pouches of hemp, maggot, caster and sweetcorn are introduced at the start of the session, and then I top up with a couple of golf ball portions plus loose feed each time they vacate the swim. I’ve tried throwing the top-up groundbait into the swim while they were still present but this has more often than not resulted in them making a premature departure. So all I introduce while they are actually in the swim is loose feed.

They love a variety of hookbaits, ranging through maggot, caster, sweetcorn, bread flake, redworm, lob tails, mini boilies and several less common baits such as cockles, mussels, cheese paste, etc. Like their swim-wandering nature, however, they also wander from one bait to another, rarely sticking to one preference for any prolonged length of time. It is amazing how often you can conjure another bite from them simply by changing the hookbait. Of course, they have favourites, the bait that catches most fish most of the time, but you will be missing out on a number of fish if you never try anything else, even if only occasionally, when the favourite is attracting fewer bites than it normally does.

I use a 14ft Drennan match rod for float fishing and an 11ft Drennan Quiver-tip rod for legering. Main line is 2.5lb and hooklength 2lb. Hooks vary from 20’s spade end, to eyed 10’s, depending on the bait.

Now for the most difficult aspect of crucian fishing - detecting bites, and then converting them into hooked fish. Float fishing is the preferred method for catching crucians, for this method is often the only way you will see a bite from them, and pole fishing is the best method of all. Float fishing is not always best though, but more of that later.

Crucians can feed in a very tricky way. They have this almost unique ability to mouth the bait without hardly lifting it off the bottom, and then moving along the bottom very slowly. The result is that you see little, if anything, at the float, or no more than a slight lift, and then a drifting to one side or the other which can easily be mistaken for the drift of the water. Or moving towards or away from you which is even more difficult to see. The lift method has little success, for the lift method has to use a fairly substantial bottom shot to work correctly, and the crucian will not tolerate excess weight, even when finely balanced with the float and the remainder of the shotting. Also, the lift method depends on the bottom shot being lifted, and this just doesn’t happen often enough, or with sufficient emphasis, when crucians are the target. Ordinary laying-on float fishing techniques also suffer in the same way and for almost the same reasons.

It seems that, most of the time anyhow, the most successful float fishing rig is one that has the depth set exactly to the depth of the water, with the hookbait hardly touching bottom (or even very, very slightly off bottom) without any line whatsoever laid on. The nearest shot to the hook, no heavier than a No. 4, should be as close as three inches away, and, unless there is a very heavy drift, the only other shot bunched at, and possibly locking, the float. Loaded floats are fine too. The float should be dotted right down to the point where it is difficult to see. What happens is that the crucian mouths the bait without lifting it, moves to one side, and pulls the float under as the line follows its own curve in the water. Or, if the crucian does lift the bait slightly, and hence the nearby small shot, the float will then be sensitive enough to respond and rise slightly through the surface; a more obvious movement when the float is dotted right down.

Many times you will see the float dancing and gyrating at the surface, and often these are the most difficult bites to hit. I think the cause of many of these bites is the shear sensitivity of the rig, in that it is set so delicately the mere waft off the crucians fins with cause it to give erratic movements. Always worth trying when this happens is a change of bottom shot position, either further away, or closer to, the hook. Also, changing the depth by a mere inch, deeper or shallower, can make a considerable difference too.

Every time you fish for crucians, specially with float tackle, you have to go through a learning curve for that session, for their behaviour as they take the bait varies so much from one session to another. There are days when, to make a successful strike, you have to hit the fish when the float is moving along the surface, other days when you have to wait for the float to go under, and yet other days when it is best to hit them when the float rises slightly. You need an hour or two’s fishing for them on that day to suss out what is needed on that day, and until you have had that learning period it’s a case of trial and error. Even then you will not get it right every time.

Using float fishing methods like the one I’ve just described does not present a bait that is absolutely stationary on the bottom. Even when there is little or no drift the turbulence created by nearby fish, feeding or not, can be enough to make the hookbait move around a little. It appears there are days when this is the crucial factor where crucians are concerned, for on those days they will not take a bait that is not lying still on the bottom. On such days you would be forgiven for thinking that what I’ve written in the preceding paragraphs is the biggest load of bull you’ve ever read. Why? Because legering tactics are the answer on such days, and they yank the quiver-tip over and hook themselves so viciously you can’t believe that there are many other days when they take a bait with incredible delicacy.

Of course, there is the factor that the method itself lends itself to producing bolder bites. The drag of the rig, and the resistance of the quiver-tip, promote either a bait that is dropped altogether, or a bait that is taken on the run due to them being startled into bolting with it. Surprisingly, however, a sensitive leger rig produces bites just as vicious as a partial bolt rig.

For sensitivity there is nothing to beat a simple paternoster, where the bomb or feeder comes off a short 6in to 9in link combined with a 2ft to 3ft long hooklength. The junction is a water knot, so there is not even the weight of a swivel involved. Fished with the lightest quiver-tip you can get away with, or a swing-tip, you have a very sensitive set-up. When I want to present them with a partial bolt-rig I use the loop method, with a short loop, and a heavier quiver-tip.

My last two sessions fishing for crucians typifies the species to a tee. The first session I float-fished, using a single grain of sweetcorn on a 14’s hook as bait, feeding hemp and sweetcorn over the groundbait mix I described earlier. It was the best session I’ve had this year, catching a nice bag of fish with several over 1.5lb and about five over 2lb to a best fish that day of 2.8. I missed a few bites and a few fish slipped the hook, but I went home feeling good. A week later I fished the same water and the same swim with the same tackle, the same method, and the same bait, over the same groundbait. With a different result. I dropped off a couple of fish and caught nothing. My mate, fishing the next swim just 5yds away, fished a groundbait feeder on a loop, with a quiver-tip rod, and a single grain of corn on a 10’s hook as bait, and bagged up. When he wasn’t looking his bites were pulling the rod off the rest.

I had as many fish in my swim at times as my mate did. In fact, they were probably the same fish moving through. He was using the same groundbait mix and fishing the same line from the bank. My bites, when I saw them, on really delicate float tackle, never developed properly, while his were vicious. There was absolutely no difference whatsoever in my presentation of the week before when I bagged up. I know that because my rod was never tackled down, but simply the rod unshipped and slipped into a quiver holdall, complete with float and rig left set. I was casting to exactly the same spot.

After two or three hours fishing it was blatantly obvious that the fish wanted a bait that was pinned to the bottom, although there didn’t appear to be any movement of my float from drift, or anything else for that matter. I could easily have changed to the winning method and caught fish myself, but I wanted to prove something (as well as you can prove anything in fishing). So I stuck it out and enviously watched my mate bag up. I tried all kinds of things to get a decent bite, even laying well on with the float tackle to emulate legering as much as possible. But no, it was not to be. Legering was all they were having that day.

So that’s crucians for you, contrary as hell. But love ‘em or hate ‘em, there are rarely two sessions the same, and that makes for some really interesting fishing.