What has turned the fish on???

In the past 7 days the fish in my local Club lakes have just switched on all of a sudden and I am left wondering why that is. Is it due to the fact that the fish are feeding like mad in order to gain strength to spawn? or is it due to the water warming up rapidly in the good weather that we have had this week?

What ever it is it seems to have had a particular effect on the Bream and Carp. In one of our lakes the Bream have just gone silly with a mate of mine hauling over 40 bream to 10lb within a 4 hour session even in bright sunshine. In another one of our lakes the Carp have gone potty this weekend with 5 different fish over 30lb and loads of 20's

anyone got any ideas why? or experiencing the same thing?

More probably the bream have already spawned and are on the feed. It happens in our local lake the same, after spawning a 100lb catch is definately on the cards for about a month then they go back to normal.

seems a bit to early to have spawned already.

The water has warmed up and the fish are on the move looking for food......it's as simple as that!

I've caught a few Bream lately and they've only had a few tubercles on them.

I assume this spring is running behind schedule in comparison to recent springs so expect the fishing to really pick up from now.

Cold overnight temps and winds from north and east during most of april put spring on hold for fish up here in north Lancs.
I dont think the warm end to march before the colder april helped either,winds have shifted and were getting warmer south/southwest winds now and overnight temps in the teens and the fish (tench in my case)have started moving and are on the feed.

I suppose it depends on what part of the country you are in but here in Gloucestershire the bream have been spawning for a month. Lydney lake where I live produced two or three 30lb weights in the match yesterday, quite a few 20lb weights and even more weights in the teens, nearly all bream with a few tench.

I know this lake well and it wouldn't have fished like that unless they had finished spawning.

I caught 2 or 3 bream that were spawning at Chad lake and that was 4 or 5 weeks ago.

Must vary alot from water to water when they spawn. Im quite sure the Bream have not spawned yet in our lakes and we are not miles away from Chad lakes.

Fish are cold-blooded creatures. As the water temperature starts to warm up the fish?s metabolism starts to speed up and make them more active. To fuel this activity fish need to take on fuel in the form of food. Its known as ?energy balance.? There is also a need to bring themselves into prime breeding condition or breeding fitness.
As the water levels of aquatic life (natural food) is still quite low (similar reasons as above) at this point in the year, they will feed on most things that they can find, angler?s bait being one of them.
This leads to the observation you?ve made.

Graham I?m interested in the comment you?ve made about the bream in your lake spawning over the last month.
What observations have you see that makes you come to the conclusion that the bream have spawned in it?

The carp in one of our local lakes have completly turned of. Again up north i nk it is down to the changing weather we have been having recently. Had a cracking session on floaters at the Easter weekend.

Joskin were are you based.

Phil.

Having lived here for 10 years now, bailiffed it for 3 years and, though I don't fish it much these days, I do walk round the lake more or less every day with my dog and talk to the anglers. Once the catch rate starts to drop from normal winter levels and the bream that are caught start to show tubercles at the first spell of warm weather they will attempt to breed, if the warm spell doesn't last it will serve to delay the spawning.

The lake (about 2.5 acres)is only 4.5ft in depth at its deepest so its very prone to temperature changes which either shortens or lengthens the spawning period depending on the weather. During spawning there will only be the odd bream caught but once they fininsh its like somebody turns a switch on, they feed like crazy and consequently become easier to catch, 20 to 30 bream a session becomes commonplace. Sweetcorn suddenly becomes the best bait after a winter where you wouldn't get a touch on it, but this situation only lasts for 4 to 6 weeks and they return to normal summer habits and the catch rate drops to a lower average.

This has been a pattern that has been followed for many years before I came to live here and still persists today. There are carp in there up to 30lbs but we had a massive carp kill 5 years ago that resulted in the death of over 300 of them. Although one or two of the old carp survived most of the ones that are in there now are of the Italian strain that we introduced a year later (20 of them) and they have thrived in there, bred and absolutely packed the weight on. The biggest we put in was 13lb and over the winter one of them was caught at just under 30lb. The carp spawn after the bream of course.

The carp continued to feed like made over the weekend in our Specimen pit with a further two more 30's and lots of mid to upper 20's. 7 different 30's over the bank holiday weekend was fantastic.