winter holding areas

R

Robert Woods

Guest
I remember fishing a deep lake in Ireland (Garradice..Co Letrim)after very heavy rain the water at the top was walm enough to bath in!!!.
 
T

The Monk

Guest
Yes Robert, thats because the precipitation was warmer than the water and as such stayed on the surface layer
 
R

Rob Brownfield

Guest
Arrrrrghhh..Science is bad...arts are good!

All I know is that Scottish carp are hard buggers and feed by flipping onto the ice and waddling there way across the loch and onto the bank and take poodles and terriers off the top :)

Agreed, in those poofta southern pits where the water is always a balmy temperature, a thermocline would probably not occur :)
 
T

The Monk

Guest
I'll reserve comment on that because of my fondness of the scots, visited a few glaswegian friends a few years ago for hogmany, bellshill, party lasted 3 month
 
R

Rodney Wrestt

Guest
Only 3 months they must have had a prior appointment.....

I meant the fish nick the radios not the people, didn't you ask if fish were clever?.
 
T

The Monk

Guest
Lovely people the scots mate, glad they were on my side, dont think my liver appreciated though!
 
I

Ian Grant

Guest
I used to do a lot of scuba diving, in the winter we'd use gravel pits and quarries to train novices, i must have spent hundreds of hours over the years in freshwater training sessions, in the very coldest weather i noticed carp - and tench would often lie up right in the middle of snags, normaly a few feet off bottom, but never on it, or near the surface totally motionless, you could spend an hour or so moving around the lake, come back and find the fish in the same spot apparently having not moved an
inch, the denser the snag the more they seem to prefer it, i think because in that stupor state they feel vulnerable,and seek a place where an attack from a predator would be difficult, i don't think they necesarily use these places to feed just to lie up, unless obviously a food source was close by, one venue used for diving is stoney cove in Leicestershire, actually in Stoney Stanton where Stef Horak lives, its an abandoned stone quarry used for scuba and commercial diver training and has depths to 120 feet during winter the thermocline is almost always steady at about 60 feet you can hover at one point in a water temp of about 8 degrees C. and put your arm into water of 2 degrees C. Weird! The fish life - No carp!, but truly massive roach in abundance would always be between the surface layers and 30 feet, the odd few might venture a few feet deeper but very few, and never below 50 feet in winter.
This place is a massive hole basically the southern side has about a sixty foot sheer drop to the water and so is always shaded,
i would say about 60% of the fish where in the brightly lit areas of the northern side
particularly attracted by cover such as the vickers viscount cockpit at about 20 - 30 feet it was like looking at a coral reef, anywhere there was a place to suddenly dive for cover was surrounded by hundreds of fish, on the few occasions i've fished for carp in winter i've tried to apply what i've seen to my fishing -i.e. bright sunlit areas , not too far from snags or cover of some sort,- then just hope they're having it on the day , i've not done too badly considering the little time i've devoted to winter carp fishing, hope this is of some help to you all.
 
R

Rodney Wrestt

Guest
I meant that in a rugged manly way of course.

Ian,
Fascinating stuff, I remember reading about this before, makes you wonder how anyone catches in winter when most of the fish are way off the bottom, especially as we are advised to fish the deeper water in winter.
 
T

Tim Birch

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 4, 2002
Messages
368
Reaction score
0
There must be Some equation surely including Surface water temperature, air temperatute, surface area and depth which could give a good idea abouyt the depths the thermocline occurs?
One for you Monk I think.
 
T

The Monk

Guest
Not really my field Tim, but I,ll try and read up on it, although from memory I dont think its actually as straight forward as that, water is transient, caused by wave action, weather, photon reaction/penertration/ plant reaction and many other variables, I'll see what I can find though Tim.
 
D

Dave Rothery

Guest
You also have to take gravel bars into consideration - swim over a 3ft bar in summer, its like bathwater-yet the gulley either side can be freezing. due to the sun being lower(so having to penetrate more atmosphere+hitting the water at a shallower angle) the effect isn't so great in winter, but its there.
 
A

andrew jackson

Guest
I am not at all convinced about winter thermoclines. Can someone please explain how this could occur? If we take in to consideration Monks water transient points, and also throw into the fray the fact that the water surface is not only subject to the warmth during the day but also the extreames of cold during the night? Further to this, is the fact that due to hydrogen bonding, a reversal is experienced as water approaches freezing, the colder water rises to the surface and pushes the warmer water below it. Also is the weak winter sun able to impact any real, sustainable heat into the waters surface?
 
T

Tim Birch

Well-known member
Joined
Oct 4, 2002
Messages
368
Reaction score
0
Once In a local tackle dealers I overheard a customer asking the proprieter questions with regards to the statements on different groundbait packets 'This one says...., but this one says etc. etc. etc.' to which the classic answer came out much to the annoyance of said customer and hilarity of rest of shop. ...Simply 'I don't suppose it matters either ways' replied the shopkeeper 'Fish can't read'
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top