Walker in the AT

I read the piece in AT about Walker on the anniversary of his death.

Something he was quoted on puzzles me though. There was a comment about how he believed that carp which moved into deeper water to escape dropping temperatures at night would emerge on the side which received the first sunshine in the morning.

That raised a couple of questions for me:

Firstly, why would a cold blooded creature need to 'escape' falling water temperatures anyway?

And, given that, as far as I'm aware, Walker and his disciples were blisfully ignorant of the opportunities to catch carp in the colder months, and so would have been referring to temperatures dropping at night during the summer, why would such tiny increments force carp into deep water?

It's guff isn't it?

BTW I'm not looking to belittle the great man. Anglers still refer to, for instance, pike seeking deeper water in periods of extreme cold. I've never understood why a cold blooded creature would need to.

Can anyone enlighten me?

Walker's belief was based I am sure on the ambient temperatures in the lake he was fishing at the time.

Normally fish don't like sudden changes in temperature and I feel his reasoning was certainly based on observation and on the experiences of his friends too.

Walker never said that carp could not be caught in the winter months. His reasoning here was that there are other fish to catch, not just carp and that the winter months are not the best time to catch them.

It is because of the very fact that fish are cold blooded that temperature of the element in which they live affects their habits. Cold water cools down their body, which causes a change in metabolism

Warm blooded animals such as ourselves tend to eat more during the winter months to keep ourselves warm.

Fish tend to do the opposite. But temperature extremes can make them stop feeding all together.

Chris Hammond ( RSPB ACA PAC} said:

Walker and his disciples were blisfully ignorant of the opportunities to catch carp in the colder months, and so would have been referring to temperatures dropping at night during the summer, why would such tiny increments force carp into deep water?

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The diffence in daytime high to night time low (with air temp) is much greater in summer than in winter. How much effect that has on water temp I'm not sure. Whilst I don't believe in hard and fast rules in angling, temperature fluctuation does seem to have a effect on fish movement.

Was Walker correct?.......... Not really, but probably as correct as he could be at the time.

"The diffence in daytime high to night time low (with air temp) is much greater in summer than in winter. How much effect that has on water temp I'm not sure."

That's my point really. Whenever I've measured water temps the fluctuations have been miniscule, even when the air temperatures have changed dramatically. I cant see that it would make the slightest bit of difference to a carp.

What would be the benefit of water that is fractionally warmer in the morning to a carp anyone?

Is it the water temp in the morning or the warming rays of the sun. Do they (sun rays) penetrate the water to warm the carp?

The carp are in the margins feeding with or without the sun at different periods of the day.

whilst air temp changes quick water temp can take days

He was right about the sunny bank , my fish in the garden pond sunbathe and I am not having a laugh they come out of the safety of cover into the sunny area and face the sun on the top ,in the colder months I always try to get on the bank that recieves the sun first on stillwaters .......

What if the sun comes up on the shallow side of the lake, the carp would be in the deep side.

The other week the carp were crashing all over the pit I was fishing, but I didn't see one on the top in the mornig anywhere, but come the evening when the sun was setting, the carp were on the surface, when it wasn't warm at all