| Locating Tips, Part 4 |
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In the same way that wind can warm or cool water, so can rain and snow. Snow, sleet or hailstones can kill the fishing dead if it has been quite productive over the last few hours or days. It can have the opposite effect if the weather has been very warm and the fish lethargic. Rain can also turn fish on or off, but our findings tend to be more positive with rain than snow, hail or sleet. The number of times we've had good results in the rain is ridiculous. Very light drizzle and no wind is a great booster to our confidence, especially if the fishing has been fairly slow of late. The last weather feature worth mentioning is air pressure. Air pressure has a massive effect on the carp and, indeed, the weather itself. As the sun's rays warm the atmosphere, fronts of cold and warm air are created. These fronts move up and down and left to right with the movement of the sun, and this movement can be one reason that a wind is blowing from a particular direction. In the northern hemisphere winds are generally drawn towards low-pressure areas. In fact, if you stand with your back to the wind, the low pressure will be on your left. Warm fronts travel faster than the cooler ones, but both tend to cause a change of wind direction. For obvious reasons, then, air pressure will affect the movements and location of the carp. Air pressure also dictates the amount of oxygen that can be absorbed by the water. High pressure allows more oxygen to be absorbed by water, whilst low pressure has the opposite effect. This pressure/ oxygen effect also affects the carp. Carp have a gas-filled sack known as the swim bladder. If you think back to your chemistry and biology lessons, you may recall that when pressure is increased upon a gas, particles in the gas are forced together. This pressure will quite obviously have an effect upon a fish, and usually it will cause carp to become lethargic. A thunderstorm can have the opposite effect. Anglers all tend to talk about thunderstorms being excellent carp-feeding periods, especially once they have passed. One theory behind this is that once the air pressure has decreased the fish become much more comfortable, so they start jumping and preparing for a nice feed. |
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