WYE, England, April 7 English anglers complain immigrants from Eastern Europe are emptying the rivers of carp.
Chris Logsdon, manager of Mid-Kent Fisheries, says the newcomers are getting for free what fishermen have to pay heavy a price to catch in his company's privately owned river, The Times of London reported.
"A 30-pound carp would cost me 3,000, pounds ($6,000) they might take five in one night," Logsdon said. "If I stole that much from the post office I'd be in jail." Carp are believed to have been imported to England during the Middle Ages as food for monks. But modern-day Englishmen and women hate the taste of the fish.
This distaste dates back to at least the Victorian era when fishing writer Francis Francis compared the carp to "a stale, musty flock bed out of some old hospital dipped in strong sewage." The fish is more popular in Poland, Romania and Bulgaria. There are rumors that immigrants have improvised fishing nets out of stolen tennis nets.
Copyright 2007 by UPI
