What percentage of carp caught are recorded at their true weight?

The theme of fish weights has come up in a number of articles on this blog over the last few months, we even have a video with Quest Baits boss Shaun H. running through the technique. Below is an article by Jon Perkins a French lake owner and regular contributor to the comments part of this blog. He brings up some interesting points on the way fish weights are recorded…

‘Being a fishery owner changes your perspective on carp fishing, there are many reasons for this, but here I will outline one of them..
I get to see in the course of a year, anglers of all levels and abilities, here at our French Fishery. we are happy to accommodate people who are fairly new to carp fishing, as well as experienced anglers. When we have somewhat less experienced anglers on the lake, I do feel the need to keep an eye on things/offer help and advice more than when we have people who are obviously well practised at carp fishing. For me the condition of the fish is one the most important factors in running a lake, and all our customers have commented on the excellent condition of the fish here. Nobody wants to see fish with torn mouths or damage to their bodies.Whilst I always spend some time with my customers (some more friendly and chatty than others), it is important to realise that they are on holiday, and expect plenty of time alone, but quite often I like to witness the landing and weighing of fish early on in the week, if things are being done correctly and the fish are being treated well then I am happy to leave things be, if there is room for improvement in the weighing and fish care side of things, I will point this out and advise accordingly.
What I do see, is a wide variation in the techniques used to weigh fish, and this leads to a situation where fish are recorded above and below their true weights. I do not want to go into the correct procedure here, because this has been well covered elsewhere on the blog, but I do see anglers recording fish at incorrect weights because of the lack of attention to detail when it comes to weighing the fish.
When you are out fishing, you don’t tend to see that many other people weighing fish because you are getting on with your own thing, but now that I see customers weighing fish every week, and when I see pictures at the end of the week and the weights recorded it makes me wonder ! I can not spend the whole week watching over customers and would not want to, but it makes me wonder….
Is this happening on every French and English lake every week of the season ?
Every week in carp talk there are pictures where I see pictures of carp and think to myself “I don’t think so ” and it leads me to ask the question – What percentage of carp caught are recorded at their true weight ?
Whilst some anglers are very thorough and correct in the way they weigh fish, there are plenty who could improve on their technique, and I suspect that this is widely the case in carp fishing.
Does it matter ? Personally I want to know the true weight of a carp if it is big enough for me to want to weigh it ! For my customers, the most important thing to me is that they leave the venue happy, with some nice carp caught (and if they were a little lighter than recorded….?)
Any catch report from a customer has to be taken at face value, there is no other way of doing it, so I guess that all fishery owners are in the same boat……perhaps I care too much !
An example of how owning a fishery changes ones perspective – as an angler it is not the sort of thing that you would really think too much about !

Best Regards
Jon’