Get their SENSES TINGLING

Carp have now awakened from their winter slumber and their senses are firing on all cylinders. But what can they really detect in the water... and how?

TASTE

Carp have taste buds dotted all over their bodies, but mostly located around the mouth and on the barbules. The barbules of a carp, in particular, are packed with taste cells that enable the fish to find food buried in the bottom debris.

Carp are able to detect a much wider range of substances than humans, including simple compounds such as some amino acids – the building blocks of life.

They also have a much more acute sense of taste than we do, potentially able to detect flavours at a thousandth of the concentration at which we can taste them, so always keep the amount of flavour that you use in your baits to a minimum or you may overdo it.

SMELL

Four nares in front of the eyes act similarly to our nostrils, except that water, being dense, flows through them rather than in and out. The nares are lined with scent cells which sample the water as it passes over them, and can detect minute quantities of dissolved chemicals.

Because the nares are on the sides of the head and work independently of one another, carp are able to determine the direction a smell is coming from.

SIGHT

Carp, as prey fish rather than predators, have their eyes positioned on the sides of their heads, giving them maximum wide-angle vision. This enables them to spot danger more effectively, but this means they have to rely more on their other senses when feeding.

Carp do have colour vision, but because water absorbs different colours of light at different rates they tend to be able to see better at the blue end of the spectrum than we do, and can even see into the ultra-violet spectrum.

Better blue vision works well at night, meaning carp can see well after dark. However, in murky water sight is not the primary sense of carp – instead, they rely on their lateral line and barbules to find food.

HEARING

Buried deep in the head behind the eye are tiny bones called ossicles that pick up on tiny vibrations in the water.

These are the ears of a fish, and although they are not linked to the outside world directly, as our ears are, they still work very effectively. Sound travels further underwater than in air, so although the underwater world is relatively quiet, fish can still hear what is going on around them very well and may well home in on the sound of other fish crunching up hard foods, such as snails.

TEMPERATURE

Carp are incredibly good at detecting changes in water temperature, in fact until recently they were more sensitive than many thermometers, able to detect changes of less than 0.1 degrees!

Being cold-blooded, it is important for carp to be able to influence their temperature by finding hot or cold spots. This is why they will often come to the surface on hot days, because the sun’s rays warm the upper layers more than they do deeper water.

Silty areas and swims with lots of weed can also warm up faster than open water, explaining why you often find fish in these areas.

VIBRATION

The lateral line stretching from the head to the tail is packed with receptors that pick up on tiny changes in water pressure caused by currents or vibrations.

This brilliant sense underwater enables carp to detect others moving close by, as well as movement on the bank. As a carp moves around, it creates vibrations that bounce back off any obstructions in the water.

The lateral line can detect these reflected vibrations, enabling the fish to build up a radar-like map of its surroundings using just these tiny changes in pressure.