Cod not feeling the heat

[dillydangler]

In the past months it has been cold in Whitby and i was catching plenty of codling but i went down fishing when it was sunny and didn't catch anything! Maybe cod like to stay deep down out of the sun and like coming up in the cold??? who knows????

 

it might be different up north but i was fishing for codling in october and got sunburn .sometimes getting two at a time on a pennel

 

they must go where the food is regardless of water temp etc.

[wurzel]

it might be different up north but i was fishing for codling in october and got sunburn .sometimes getting two at a time on a pennel

 

they must go where the food is regardless of water temp etc.

 

 

The smaller the codling the less they seem effected by temperature, some times the very small codling stay close inshore here in the South East all summer, as you say there is plenty of food for them, It's the larger double figure cod that don't seem to favour the warmer water inshore, it also gets to cold, although this is probably more to do with the food sauce disappearing, we notice the effects in this area because of the shallow water, we have to steam two hours before you can find an average depth of over 60 feet another hour for a 100 feet and four hours to get to 130 with the odd deeper bit down to 180 feet, so the sea tends to warm up quick but also cools down quickly, we often see differences in whats to be caught just with a change in wind direction.

[Dan]

Hi Wurzle,

 

Can you explain why we should catch summer cod of the south coast wrecking?

 

Most fish have an optimum breeding temperature and I can state that from personal experience with the breeding of tropical and cold water fish.

 

Take the zebra danio, keep it at 79 to 80 degrees and feed well with white worm for two weeks, then drop the temperature by adding cold water to give the fish the idea the snow is melting giving more oxygen and subsequent more food in the water and they start spawning. Left full of spawn without the right conditions and they become egg bound on most occasions and die.

 

Will fish migrate to find ideal conditions for spawning? I would have to guess yes, they have been around for a lot longer than us.

 

 

Ive always thought it was because at that depth the sea is colder, anyone ever measure the temp down there?

[Toerag]

Apparently there never used to be any cod in the channel before the big winter of '63. Interestingly the cod seem to appear on the wrecks around May and stay until September/October. We also get the odd small (4-7lb) cod on certain gravelbanks in spring & summer, never in winter.

As to spawning and growing success for cod, there was an article in Fishing News recently about it, if someone has access to the website perhaps they could find it and post it here? I think it was along the lines of cold water = good spawning, warm water = good growing.

[Guest binatone]

Ive always thought it was because at that depth the sea is colder, anyone ever measure the temp down there?

Yes commercial fishermen do it all the time. That’s one of the reasons there successful in catching fish.

[macky1]

dillydangler hit the nail on the head

 

at the end of the day they follow the food

 

last year i was catching cod to 5lb from local beaches in june/july

when ther was a molt of crab

when the crabs had finished molting the cod went, along with the smoothys,bass and thornys