Feeding patterns

Many fish feed better at certain times of the day, such as:

Roach, Tench and Perch who often have early morning and evening feeding spells.
On some stillwaters in winter you can sometimes set a time when roach will feed for a short period.
Do perch feed at night?

Barbel - It seems that the majority of big barbel are now caught at night. Is this because they move around more during the night or because they are older, wiser fish who have been caught before and are now spooked by visible baits and rigs in daylight.

Rudd are thought of as surface feeders but are sometimes caught at night on bottom baits.

Then you have Carp, Chub, Pike and Zander who all have their own particular feeding patterns.

Moon phases, temperature, atmospheric pressure, light values, river conditions all come into the equation.

Of course, there are always exceptions to the rules and it's the mystery and unpredictability that makes fishing the addiction that it is.

Any thoughts on why fish prefer to feed at certain times and the reasons for it?

A strange one Steve.
Just taking Perch, Pike, and Chub. As we know all three are predators. Pike and Perch more so than Chub.
Although they like low light conditions, by and large they don't seem to feed or hunt as much in the complete dark, Pike and Perch less so than Chub.

steve
my take on it is this(for what its worth)
forget fish feeding times on pressured/commercial lakes. these fish know that daytime is particularly less safe and belive me they do learn. Just as as sider, i fish cuttle mill fishery in the midlands and have done for years. one corner of the lake is seprated by a floating boom. if you throw a mixer inside the carp fibght each other for it. the other side and you harldy see a swirl.
I would try and look at a private lake if poss. Not easy i know! I however, do have use of some private lakes. And again the fish do go off slightly during daylight bu not like on commercials. I think this is a natural defence to birds, otters etc. the fishes minds are on survival rather than feeding. On commericals the fish have one extra fear (fisherman) so feed even less often. All is not lost tho' head for the dark swims and the bites may come more often. Hope this helps.

I used to think the reason for fish feeding in the early morning and evening was down to low light levels. With fish not having eyelids being sensitive to bright light, but this is surely contradicted by many species habit of basking on the surface during bright sunny days in high summer.

Are fish intelligent enough to change their feeding patterns due to repeated captures? I believe they learn by association.

I remember many years ago losing a reasonable sized perch of around 1lb when a weak spot on the hooklength broke. About 30 minutes later I caught that same perch again with the hooklength still attached. So that one did'nt learn very quickly!

What do they say about goldfish only having a memory of 3 seconds. A bit like me. What did I say?

Steve,

I think the main reason that most fish are easier to catch in lower light levels is becuase they can't see your tackle so they drop their guard.

I think we'd all be amazed if we knew how many fish were in our swim at times, or how many times roach had mouthed or maggot, or tench picked up our pellet hookbait and so on.

I find it amazing that sometimes you can't get a bite on an 18 hook, but switch down to a 22 and that can all change.

Fish are much more sensitive than we often give them credit for.

The majority of cyprinids do not like bright light.

Big roach are notorious for feeding in low light conditions and during the first hour or two of darkness. They feel safer then I guess. However they will feed all day in overcast conditions of when the river has some colour in it.

The only cyprinids in our part of the world that don't mind bright sunlight are dace and rudd.

Barbel feed very well in coloured rivers even in the middle of the day, but when it is warm and the water is gin clear, you only chance of success is late evening or at night.

Chub can be caught at any time of course as long as you don't scare them, but as night falls they will often go on a feeding spree.

Zander love low light and coloured water. In the States, Walleye are often taken over deep water at night using lures.

Tench are strange fish. The idea that you have to be out at dawn to catch them is wrong in many cases. I would say that the bigger percentage of tench I have caught over 7 lbs have been taken in bright sunlight between 10am and 2 pm. I have caught very few tench at night.

As regards carp. The biggest carp I ever caught in SA were taken at night. This seems to be the pattern in warm countries. However carp in the UK seem to feed better when there is some daylight around.

Ron, I totally agree that tench can often be caught in bright sunlight and dawn can be useless (on some waters). I've found the same with some perch venues.

Talking of how many fish can be in your swim without realising it, reminds me of a clear water pit I used to fish for tench.

One of my favourite spots was one of those 'aquarium' swims, where the water was crystal clear. I would floatfish sweetcorn, laying on and throw a couple of handfuls of loose sweetcorn around the float. A number of tench would appear and mop up all the loose grains but frustratingly leave the one on the hook!

If the water had'nt been so clear I would'nt have known those fish where even in front of me. No bites, no bubbles. In fact if I had not seen those tench I would I thought that they were not feeding or there was no fish there at all!

This baffling and frustrating behaviour carried on until by watching those tench, I noticed they were standing on their heads and sucking up the loose bait into their mouths and rejecting the heavier hookbait. The stiff line was preventing the natural movement of the bait. Eventually, after many experiments, a change to a light braid hooklength and a lighter hook resulted in those tench taking the baited hook and me putting a few fish on the bank.

Maybe, thats why breadflake is a good tench bait, because of its neutral buoyancy.

Absolutely spot on Steve. I spent a lot of time fishing an Oxfordshire gravel pit that was crystal clear.

My most succesfull bait was a maggot/redworm cocktail, but I also caught lots on breadflake.

"Head to hell and tail to heaven is how they feed" is how an angling clergyman once put it to **** Walker.

That might have been old Ted Alston who knew a thing or two about the habits of tench. He held the record years ago.

I had problems getting bites from a swim that was obviously full of tench, judging by the bubbles. The tench were taking casters, and introducing a handful of loose feed really stirred them up, it was like someone had switched on a jacuzzi.

In the end I put a small piece of brown rig foam on the shank of my hook which counteracted its weight, as I figured that the tench were feeding by suction and my baited hook was not being sucked up.

The rig foam trick had pretty good results, we started attracting more bites and connecting with more fish.

The best thing though was to give them a good old lobworm to look at. Bites were much more positive, including a real churner or two!

On this lake at least, my experience is the same as Ron's. We get waterside as early as possible, because we are tench fishing and that's what your supposed to do, right? However most days there is no action until 10am, and then fish will come regularly until early afternoon, when it seems to drop off. Not fished there in the evening.