Early spawning

Theres one thing I’ve noticed since the volentry abolishon of the close season on still waters its the fact that the fish seem to spawn a lot earlier now than they used to when the closed season applied. Around my area (the N.W. Merseyside area) the carp have been at it for the last ten days and all the bream and roach have been covered in breeding tubicles for the last month. Where as a few years ago you used to catch a lot of fish full of spawn right the way through June and basically write the carp off for a week or two in July due to them spawning. Another thing is the match weights are down, a sure sign of fish spawning early.
Is this down to the weather? I don`t think so. I think its down to the fact that naturally the fish need an extra nutrishinal boost to start the breeding cycle off, but once the warm weather comes there is a lag due to the fact that the plankton and invertibrates also have to reproduce to provide this much needed boost and this takes time.
Bait now is such an itegral part of our native fishes diet that stocks are unnaturally high and when we all stopped fishing on March 15th this very large stock of fish suddenly turned to natural food as their only food source so depleting the invertibrate stock it took longer and longer every year for it to recover to the extent to trigger fish breeding. A consequence of this is that if it pushed the breeding season so late in some years that if the weather was poor some fish especially carp would not breed at all that year leading to spawn bound fish(which is a serious cause of death in older fish).Far from being detrimental to fish stocks I think the abolishon of the close season is now a benefit to them.
This may sound like a load of b*****ks to anyone whos an expert on such things but its based on my own observations and adding two and two together and probably getting five .I look forward to hearing from any one who has thoughts on this issue.

As far as I know fish spawning is triggerd by water temperature. Perhaps the early spawning in recent years has more to do with mild winters? However we had a very cold March this year,but a very warm May.

The temperature of the water must depend upon depth, aspect etc, and in rivers the amount of rain. I really don't know about extra food? Even in muddy commercial carp puddles.

I agree with you that water temperature is the prime condition regarding spawning, but what I`m saying is that the regular influx of bait supplies the fish with the vital calories proteins and carbohydrates that they need to produce eggs and milt earlier. so that they are in better condition to take advantage of any early spell of warm weather in which to spawn.Rather than have to depend on the natural food larder to supply these needs which also require warm water to full fill their own breeding cycles.

I really don't know. I watched carp at it like good un's in a local lake last Thursday that is very lightly fished. I do see your point though, we really need a biologist to answer this one.

DAVY.What you actually saw goes some way to proving my point as the venue you observed is lightly fished there fore its Biomass is probably in balance. Its the heavily stocked club waters which I`m refering to the ones thst always produce bites what ever weather and are always popular.An example of one is the one I`m fishing now it used to have a strict vigourously enforced close season which I always thought was courting disaster in what was evidently an out and out bait water. As a result on the 16th of june you either caught fish after fish full of spawn or you struggled because they were at it.Now that the closed season has been removed the fish have all spawned and are in peak condition for the coming summer.

DAVY. Bioligists are like Taxis theres never one around when you need one.

But do they charge double after midnight?

I`m dreading to think what they charge on a bank holiday.

Yeah,but they still wont go south of the river!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Close season often ment that the banks were void of people so nobody saw the fish, but now people are on the banks constantly and so more observation is undertaken and so people notice more. Also most of the fish in the fish bowls are stockys (not stokees)born and bred in fish farms so it may affect there biology as only the fittest survive.