A mate who doesnt fish phoned me and said whilst out with his dog he had seen a Golden Eagle catching a small carp out of the water irrigation pond near where we live live in Murcia Spain
so yesterday with camera in hand off i go to sit @ the 2.5 acre square pond for a couple of hrs to see if i can film it ...luckilly there is a hole in the fence so i could hide in the bushes out of site and watch the water without being seen inside the fence
anyway watched the Golden Eagle flying around but no where near me
when i heard this noise coming along the margin ...probably about 75 small 1lb carp coralling small fry down into the corner so they then has them pinned in the shallows and were feasting on them ....never seen this done like this by carp before it was like watching Dolphins on a wildlife documentary
i had to keep moving in front of them to film it ..so i made a quick video this morning to show on here
has any one else seen anything like this before ?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1XwtTkdHeo

In reply to Post #1
Nice video.
Yes, I've witnessed it, fascinating to see.
I've caught carp that have coughed up mostly roach fry in the weigh sling/unhooking mat.

Nature knows a better food source, and carp can and will herd up and engulf fry.
Why wouldn't they, it is a great protein source like frog/toad spawn and tadpoles.

In reply to Post #1
Carp are far more carnivorous than we think. I've heard of them being caught on sprats or spinners before now. One lake I fish is black with tadpoles in the spring but very few seem to develop into frogs, think I know why!

In reply to Post #3
I'm sure you're right. I've rescued adult frogs from my smaller koi on more than one occasion. I expect the bigger ones probably just swallow them quickly but I've managed to spot frog legs protruding from the mouths of a few over ambitious koi.

I've currently got some koi fry in a tank that all were from the same spawning so hatched more or less the same time. Obviously some grow a little faster than others so these will then take more and larger food enabling them to grow even faster. It can get to a point where one or two are large enough to start eating their smaller siblings. Not just nibbling but swallowing the smallest whole. They continue to grow much faster than their smaller brethren by targeting the smallest fry and no doubt would eat a lot of their siblings unless they are segregated. ( google tobi if interested )
I expect this also happens to a certain extent in a lake after the carp have spawned.

In reply to Post #2
Yes when we lived in the UK we had a large koi pond and the Frog spawn never lasted long the Carp would gourge themselves on it but the toad spawn they werent that fussy about it ?
but the sturgeon would eat the Toad spawn !
it was quite fascinating watching the Carp work along the margin but i had to stay in the cover of the shrubs so couldnt get in any of the corners as i was there really to see the Golden Eagle fishing and didnt want to be seen moving around to much
did manage to capture the Golden Eagle eventually sat nearby

In reply to Post #5
great photo

In reply to Post #6
Thanks yes i am very lucky that where i live we have a very diverse amount of wildlife as i am surrounded by National / Natural Parks ...normally this Golden Eagle doesnt let you get within 500mtrs but i had a lucky day and took the photo from approx 150mtrs with a Nikon P950 camera that has an amazing zoom capability
i spent alot of time working / shooting / fishing all over Scotland and never managed to see a single Eagle and i see one most weeks from my house soaring across the valley and if determined just drive 30 mins up into the park and its pretty likly you would see one

In reply to Post #1
I've not seen it but Mark Walsingham told me on numerous occasions he had seen carp taking rudd fry at Ashmead.

I've not seen it myself but often wonder about it too. It might explain how some Carp can go for so long between captures or even remain uncaught.
I remember many years ago reading an Andy Little column where he caught Carp on Gudgeon whilst Eel fishing!

I was fishing a lake in France
when I thought on no !!!! they are blooming spawning in the margins in the corner

I walked up to see and the wind had pushed millions of tadpoles the complete corner was a sheet of black tadpoles and the carp were roaring into them and having a right old feed

Without a doubt everything in nature likes a quick easy meal
and i think frog spawn is without a doubt the most spought after food source for carp in the spring maybe its easilly digestible ? or full of protein ? whatever it was it certainly preoccupies them and i never found a boilie that could compete with frog spawn
But there was 1 bait that came second on the carps top food preoccupation list and that was TOFU they loved it ...i used to chuck big cubes in my pond it was amazing to see how they would force it into there mouths
i caught more carp in the margins with Tofu than any other bait especially on the Thames the only downside was every thing thats swims likes it too but in certain swims @ the right of year you could watch your baits and you had to just sit on your hands and wait for it to scream off

In reply to Post #11
I have had carp on black zigs in the margins when they were feeding on tadpoles, and the other week I had a carp and it coughed up a 2" fry on the mat.

Great video that mate, saw a Golden Eagle a few years ago by the motorway in Scotland

In reply to Post #11
Without a doubt everything in nature likes a quick easy meal

Agree, fish eat fish or anything else that becomes available, fish spawn, tadpoles and the natural aquatic seasonal harvests or anything that gets dropped in the water, think bushes above it etc

I was on the Trent at the weekend, it had been in flood so all the bankside naturals will have been washed in switching the fish on. I had one barbel and it threw up a couple of worms, interesting, I wasn't using worms, I will be taking some next time though

From a carp angling perspective we are preoccupied with boilies, don't get me wrong a well introduced food source takes some beating for me but for instant action or something different there are lots of other options that other anglers hardly use. Love hearing about the Tofo stuff

+1 for Tadpoles being a big food source when available, the fishing can be quite tough when on them.
In France I've also seen small Carp hammer into Catfish fry which were balled up mid water, literally like you see when Tuna school bait fish, it was a solid black ball of mini Cats about 3 feet across, 1 of quite a few, only ever seen that once!

When I owned my French carp lake, the time when the frogs spawned was very hard to get a bite, even though it was a runs water....the carp and the cats would just steam into the big balls of spawn and gorge themselves on it......then when the tadpoles hatched out the carp all went crazy eating as many as they could cram in their mouths, once again, very hard to get a bite....god knows how much spawn they laid down, loads and loads got eaten as spawn or tadpoles but several weeks later we were overrun by baby frogs (most of which got eaten by the herons)

I fly fish on a small lake in Winchester that is fed by the Itchen. Carp have entered the lake during floods and seem happy there. Almost any kind of small nymph or lure on a slow retrieve might be hit by a carp. Epic fights on light fly tackle. I think it shows that carp will eat fry and any other naturals when they can't get bait.

I first witnessed carp feeding on rudd back in the 90's, not fry, rudd of 4-6ins vanishing straight down the throats of mid-doubles.
Since then I've seen similar on many occasions. I've regularly watched rudd feeding on their own fry as well.