By Roy Van Goor

What time did you catch that carp?

This is one of the things I seem to be most interested in when I talk about catches that other anglers have had. I would say 70% of the anglers on the waters I fish are doing overnighters.. This means arriving at 18.00 in the evening and fishing until 09.00 in the morning.

What I hear a lot is that they are not confident in fishing the days, because the fish feed at night, and not during daytime. Well, in my view some of this is true, they tend to catch fish during the evening, night and morning. But I would never overlook the hours of daylight. I hardly fish overnighters anymore because I catch my fish with no problem during daytime. But a lot of anglers cant get there heads around fishing daytime only. Is it a confidence thing?In my view there are some explanations for this:

On the canals…
During the night hours there is no boat activity, fish have the entire canal to hold up in and don’t need to move around. In the daytime boats push the fish into the margins and keeps them moving, meaning they use energy and need to eat. The boats also disturb the bottom and get fish attracted to these areas. The oxygen level is higher during daytime because of the boat traffic and wind.

On lakes
When there are a lot of water plants in the lake, they tend to use oxygen to in the night, like any plant, meaning the oxygen level will be lower during the hours of darkness. And when the sun comes up they start to produce oxygen, resulting in more activity. Again, windy conditions are often during the hours in the afternoon, activating fish to feed on the windy areas. Fish see more, and can detect baits easier. And off course less anglers are on the banks..

If I look at my own statistics over the last few years from myself and other anglers then I would say that 90 % are daytime catches. In my case even in France where the carp are fished for almost every day, most of the fish are caught during daytime.. Of course I know there are many more variables that make the difference between catching and blanking..but I find it an interesting subject..

I am looking forward to your opinion on this subject..

Greetz
Roy van Goor

Related posts