Rare Leather Carp Highlight of the Day

Leather carp are basically smooth skinned carp that have little or no scales.  In most, the dorsal row of scales are few or missing. Like a common and a mirror carp, a leather carp is biologically the same as the other two.  However, it is distinctly genetically different than a common or a mirror.  A lot of carp fishermen are confused thinking a leather is a mirror carp with little or no scales.  Not true.  Leathers are different from mirrors.  In addition, leather carp have lower red blood cell counts and have much slower growth rates than mirrors.
The highlight of my good fishing day today was catching a dark skinned leather carp.  I landed a good number of carp up to 20 lbs.,  but the 19 lb. leather carp shown here was the first I have gotten this year and the first in a long time.  Once again, the fish were active today.  Chick peas in combination with pop-up artificial corn was the hot bait.