Do fish have Winter holding areas.

This may sound an odd observation, but I am one of those people who place much credance on this particular point. In fact I have capitalised on it for many years.

My question to you guys is, do you subscribe to the belief, or do you treat it as just ''Mumbo Jumbo''?

It seems logical to me! There will be areas of rivers, lakes and canals that are in the sun and thus warmer on really cold days. Some outfalls on canals will generate warm water which will be preferred in winter to summer.

Trees will lose their leaves and thus the cover they provide will be reduced! Fish may prefer the shade from shrubs and bushes instead.

I find that they have holding areas where I am not fishing

If fish, carp in particular were in the same areas as warmer months it would save us anglers having to spend time casting around.
We're all aware that just casting in one particular spot is a sure way to blank if carp are the target.
It's certainly not mumbo jumbo, it's called fishing.

I'm very much in agreement. To mention just one species I believe that barbel will move to deeper water and slacks to save energy when the temperature drops. If then the river then rises and the flow speeds up they will probably move to the slowest areas they can find but will need to feed to replace the energy used. A good time to locate them.................

Great believer in this ,it came too my attention a few years back now ,whilst out clubbing on a icey winters morning ,i had roved the river all morning ,without a bite ,and then on the next bend stumbled across a very deep, far margin spot, ,fishing with a cage feeder full of liquidized bread and bread flake as bait ,i took no less than half a dozen chubb over 4lbs from this one spot ,it containued too produce all winter catching several much bigger fish.

Yes, but a basic winter/summer comparison is a bit too simplistic. There a so many interdependent factors that give rise to certain holding areas at specific times. The species of fish concerned is also a huge factor. There are places I know will hold fish when certain specific conditions are met. When those conditions are not met, you'd be completely wasting your time in those places.

The roach pool that gets a mention in some of my reports has a deep area - 15ft or more - at the northerly end. During the warmer months the roach can show up anywhere, but with the onset of cold weather they move into the deeps and can consistently be caught from this one area, maybe a twentieth of the lake as a whole.

They aren't always at full depth and continue to give themselves away by rolling in the evening, at which times they can be caught shallow using regular float tactics. When they're not showing, a maggot feeder heli-rig cast into the deepest water is quite often successful. I can only assume that the deep water, which is largely protected from the prevailing wind, is their preferred winter quarters.

It's a while since I've fished there on a regular basis, but this year sees me with a season ticket, so fingers are crossed for a productive winter and spring.

On the canals and rivers round here the prey fish tend to congregate near bridges and town sections when the winter sets in and the cormorants arrive...
I guess they know somehow that places busy with people means less predation and bread from the duck feeders ?

Derek,

I'm not too sure if they have defined holding places, could it be that weather conditions play a big part in the areas they select.

In very cold situations, I have seen Barbel and Chub clustered tightly together in the merest of depression of the river bed.

Flood conditions are different, I'm certain they look for sheltered area, area of water that have structures that defuse the main current.

It may look like a raging torrent from above but in reality the structures have created areas of relative calm water where the fish can hold up out of the raging current.

These could be called Holding areas, but it's far more to do with resting areas, where energy can be reserved rather that fighting against the strong flows.

These type of situation happen every time we have a major flood, for fish it's a natural occurrence and something they wold do instinctively, rather than finding holding areas for feeding.

Bob

Bob, I take your point with regard to swiftly flowing rivers, in flood or not. But can we apply the same principle to canals or slow moving Fenland drains, or better still stillwaters?

Interesting point though, but it's this that makes the issue so intriguing.

I definitely think there's some food for thought in this, though perhaps it comes down to that age-old issue of watercraft.

For a couple of seasons, my most productive chub swim during the winter was a spot where a fairly substantial branch, sticking out some 12 feet in to a far bank swim had caused an immense raft of debris to form. It stayed there for 3 seasons, and whilst you wouldn't really catch much from it during the summer, from October through to the end of the season it was an absolutely banker. Interestingly, it wasn't just under the raft that was productive... the same run behind it for about 12 or 15 yards was seemingly also full of chub. And strangely, it was just as good with the water low and clear as it was with 2 or 3 foot on and the colour of tea.

However, after one particularly high flood, it was almost completely washed away, and seemingly the chub with it. Whilst I can still catch the very occasional fish there now, it's nothing like as productive as when the raft was there.

So do they have winter holding areas? Most certainly "yes".... but in a wider sense, its a question of finding the feature that suits the fish at a given time of year.

Just for reference, the river above is the thames in Oxfordshire.

One river stretch I fish I have never caught a chub there in the summer, its a narrow river further up but this bottom section widens and deepens. In the winter I can almost guarantee catching chub especially in two swims, one being a bridge. Through November to March its the same, usually at least 4 or 5 my best being 9, good fish as well. Once I go back on June 16th or after no chub except small fry in the margins but never caught any of these big specimens in the summer.. They must come down the river in the winter and stay here and then go back up the river somewhere between March and June.

The best winter tench fishing I ever had came many years ago from an estate lake that was nowhere more than about five feet deep and most of the tench were caught from depths of less than three feet. This water did have the benefit though from being surrounded by trees and the shallow waters also respond to the conditions much quicker than deeper ones. In the winter a warm sunny day would almost guarantee at least a tench, or two in the margins.

On my local stretches of the Hampshire Avon some swims are devoid of fish in the summer but they are packed in tightly in the winter, especially true for the chub and roach.

In extreme conditions I know a good few side streams that are alive with big roach when the main river is running full and powerful.

Deep eddies on a large bend are often full of fish in the winter whereas in the summer it is truly difficult to win a bite from.

On the waters that I fish I have observed that most shoal fish shoal a lot tighter and move about much less during the colder months; and you can move swims several times before you find them, and even then most of them eat a lot less and seem quite unwilling to chase a moving bait as much as they would in warmer waters.

I've seen barbel, chub and other species huddling very close together under tree roots and other bankside cover on really cold winter days and they will often stay there all day long rarely venturing out from under their shelter.

On my local gravel pit (which is very old and established) there is a deep hole that I accidentally found in front of a large tree and in between two swims, the hole is around 15ft deep and is the only place I know off on that gravel pit that will regularly produce feeding bream and other fish while most of the surface is covered with ice.
NB: The temperature at that depth is usually slightly over 4 degrees Celsius anyway (and at its heaviest) even during the summer months.

On our shallowish estate lake in the Lee of one of the islands I have also witness Carp lying almost stationary on the bottom during one prolonged ice cold period and it looked like one or two of them even had leaves building up over their tails.
I think I even managed to temporarily hook one accidentally while retrieving a plug meant for pike one day.

Keith

Long since been convinced roach in particular get together in the usual haunts. In some of the staithes on the broads you could fill a landing net with a single sweep in the coldest periods.
I agree it's only one of the many variables that we try to accomodate.