Carp reach sexual maturity around their third year an can live to 50 years. Whilst the average carp is 35 cm they can grow to 100 cm and weigh up to 50 Lb. The common carp is the original strain with the mirrors being genetically bred out of the stock. In China, Carp were the first fish to be bread for food with several domesticated verities emerging. The Japanese were responsible for breeding Koi Carp, which are large ornamental verity with mixture of colors including White, Orange Gold, and Black.
Carp are often consider stupid and easy to catch.
I remember reading in an article by Richard Walker that he used to visit the record carp he caught after it had been installed in London Zoo Aquarium. When he did so he would feed it with various foods, but the one food it would never eat were balls of bread paste - the bait upon which it had been caught. This refusal to eat the paste continued until it died, some twenty-odd years after he caught it. Izaak was probably wrong, carp had been around in England for longer than that, but it shows that there was a general awareness that it was a foreign fish at the time. Izaak stated that carp roe was in great demand by Jewish people in order to be made into caviar.