J
John McLaren
Guest
I have long been a believer in "feeding spells", ie: that some fish will come on to the feed for a period then go off. In particular this seemed to apply to pike and chub but a session on the Ribble on Tuesday started me thinking:
Two of us were fishing just 10 yards apart, there had been little action during a bright afternoon but we eagerly awaited the gathering dusk and darkness. Although our main target was Chub Tony had been fishing pellet during the afternoon whilst I fished maggot but by dusk I had swapped over first to flake and then cheesepaste and flake cocktail. Both of us were getting odd pulls and knocks but Tony finally had a good take and pulled into a nice fish which proved to be a bill of 7lb whilst he was playing it my rod also went off and I landed a smaller barbel.
The activity was followed by a a quiet spell with no rod movements until my rod pulled over and I netted a Chub of 5.01 (a new pb for the river) whilst I was unhooking this Tony landed a chub of 5.12. Obviously the celebrations over these two fish lasted longer than usual but by the time we got back to fishing all was "dead" again and continued so until we packed up at 8pm.
As we walked back to the car I remarked that I would have liked to stay on as there would surely be more feeding spells. But what does that mean? Do the fish actually "turn-on" from time to time or, given that we each had caught barbel then chub in a very short time span is it simply that they moved into our adjacent swims as part of a patrolling activity - certainly I have seen barbel, carp and rainbow trout acting in this fashion but pike often seem to feed once or twice a day and chub give that impression at times also.
Sorry to be so long-winded but what do you think? And does it matter?
Two of us were fishing just 10 yards apart, there had been little action during a bright afternoon but we eagerly awaited the gathering dusk and darkness. Although our main target was Chub Tony had been fishing pellet during the afternoon whilst I fished maggot but by dusk I had swapped over first to flake and then cheesepaste and flake cocktail. Both of us were getting odd pulls and knocks but Tony finally had a good take and pulled into a nice fish which proved to be a bill of 7lb whilst he was playing it my rod also went off and I landed a smaller barbel.
The activity was followed by a a quiet spell with no rod movements until my rod pulled over and I netted a Chub of 5.01 (a new pb for the river) whilst I was unhooking this Tony landed a chub of 5.12. Obviously the celebrations over these two fish lasted longer than usual but by the time we got back to fishing all was "dead" again and continued so until we packed up at 8pm.
As we walked back to the car I remarked that I would have liked to stay on as there would surely be more feeding spells. But what does that mean? Do the fish actually "turn-on" from time to time or, given that we each had caught barbel then chub in a very short time span is it simply that they moved into our adjacent swims as part of a patrolling activity - certainly I have seen barbel, carp and rainbow trout acting in this fashion but pike often seem to feed once or twice a day and chub give that impression at times also.
Sorry to be so long-winded but what do you think? And does it matter?