Feeding times

My fishing buddy lives within walking distance of the ponds we fish and he's often walking round the ponds and watching others fish if he's not fishing.
He's been saying for ages that the fish don't feed until after 2pm in the winter, well yesterday he was proved right
We fished one pond from 11am and up to 4:30 pm I'd not had a bite, I'd changed baits from maggot to caster to bread and sweet corn, even put a piece of meat on a bomb and left it out in case the carp wanted to feed. My mate had had 1 chub in this time
Then at 4:30 the gong went for dinner and the fish fed - in the next 2 hours I caught 5 chub, a skimmer and a common carp - so in future we are not going to bother fishing in the mornings and just stick with afternoons and evenings.
Has anyone else noticed this on certain lakes?

There's a pond local to me, where your pi&@ing against the wind if you fish it during the day in winter. Dawn and dusk are the feeding times...


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Plenty of waters exhibit distinct feeding times. When those feeding periods are can vary depending on the prevailing conditions.

I know a little carp water that does nothing beyond the first hour or so after opening at 0730. I know a tench water that fishes until around 1000 and goes quiet through the middle part of the day. It then comes to life again at about 1800. The tidal Trent often fishes well at dawn and dusk, but the state of the tide has a big influence on that.

It's always worth keeping an eye open for the vaguaries of the places you fish. While there are often rules of thumb that are worth bearing in mind (dawn/dusk etc) they aren't hard and fast. All sorts of different factors come into play.

Lord Paul of Sheffield said:

Then at 4:30 the gong went for dinner and the fish fed

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Just a thought, did loads of school children come and feed the ducks after school?

I've had this happen to me before, I started cussing (to myself) thinking it was bad enogh and then ta-da I caught loads - this also links back to my post about making aload of racket and noise.

There truly are no absolute rules in fishing.

In Spring/Summer/early Autumn my local river fishes exceptional well early morning till around 10-10.30, after that it's very difficult. A local pit is just the same for tench, where as if you're carp fishing it's nights only but the tench rarely feed over night. Another pit I fish for roach will fish well from dawn till midday but for bream it's evenings and through the night.

I rarely fish whole days anymore, I much prefer to fish shorter sessions at what I consider to be prime fishing time.

iannate said:

Just a thought, did loads of school children come and feed the ducks after school?

I've had this happen to me before, I started cussing (to myself) thinking it was bad enogh and then ta-da I caught loads - this also links back to my post about making aload of racket and noise.

There truly are no absolute rules in fishing.

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no this pond is a bit out of the way and only get anglers there no passersby

In summer the carp can be caught of the top on bread but after a couple of weeks wise up - and then it's difficult to get them to take the bread confidecntly - that is until a few anglers pack up and leave - it's almost as if the car dorrs slamming makes the fish think it's safe to feed

Sounds like CIBBYL syndrome to me (Chuck In Bait Before You Leave.)

Bet the margins fish well as well!