What happens to the fish in this weather?

ladybirdirl

Ok so that might be the blondest thread ever :eek:in this forum but as I'm dying to go out fishing again soon(fishery fishing) I was just thinking, given the freaky weather we've had what will have happened to the fish?

I presume they move down in the river/lake & find a pocket of oxygen but given that there's been a lot of coverage of lakes etc frozen over completely in such a short period of time, I was wondering would that have killed some off entirely?

SeaFields

Not at all :P

The fish are still there, happy as larry, under the ice. If a lake was shallow enough for it to freeze solid to the bottom it wouldn't be deep enough to hold fish at any time of the year.

When the water is as cold the fish don't move about as much and slow their metabolism right down so as to conserve their reserves. Some fish cope better than others.

The fish breath the oxygen dissolved in the water so don't need breaks in the ice. Its actually really hot weather rather than cold weather which reduces the amount of oxygen in the water.

Hope that answer the blondest thread EVER in the angling forum :D

tench

in the shallower lakes smaller fish will suffer badley under the ice as the weed and leves break down it will use up a lot of oxygen in the water this happend in 1980 or 81 when we had lakes frozen over for a time and most small fish died. as for deeper lakes fish will be at a level that suits them in the water collum

snow ghost

Does anyone know how this cold weather affects fish behaviour in our seas???

Do they move closer to shore? Or do the move out into the warmer Atlantic? etc

And do their feeding habits change?

stevenmu

I was at a relatives house over Christmas and they had a small garden pond with some fish. It was frozen right over and you could look in to see the fish sitting on the bottom not moving. They were still alive, it's just their metabolism slows right down in the cold, almost like hibernation. The same happens to some degree to fish in rivers and lakes, as the water cools they slow right down, move around a lot less etc.



As an aside, if ice didn't float on water there's a very good chance that there there'd be no life on earth at all. Back when life was developing the seas there were several periods where the planet was so cold it froze over completely. If ice didn't float, the seas would have frozen from the bottom up and probably never have thawed out. But because ice floats, it formed a protective layer over the seas, which actually insulated the water trapping in it's heat and the heat from earth's core keeping the water warm enough for life to develop.

coolwings

snow ghost wrote: »

Does anyone know how this cold weather affects fish behaviour in our seas???

Do they move closer to shore? Or do the move out into the warmer Atlantic? etc

And do their feeding habits change?

Whe the cold weather hits the shallows cool. This encourages cold water northern species like cod, whiting to move inshore and feed on crabs, sprat, etc. So we get codling fishing from the shore - wherever the trawlers haven't taken the lot that is.
At the same time the warm water species move offshore looking for warmer water, so bass become rare from the shore, unless you are in Kerry where the Gulf Stream raises temperatures slightly and some bass fishing continues over the winter.

ladybirdirl

Well thank you all..what a bunch of intelligent people we have here on the forum (I'm adding this to make you all forget my blondness obviously:p)

I just wish I had checked this thread prior to going out running on Saturday though.

I had to come into work so to take a break I went for a quick run around a park opposite where I work. They have just put a new pond type thing in the park, it was still quite icy so I grabbed a stick & started hammering away at the ice thinking I was making little breathing pools for the fish. Of course the ice came away quite easily & then I realised I was actually trying to rescue a rock & not a fish:eek:

1 last question..after a big freeze like that is it worth waiting to go fishing again? What I mean is will that amount of cold weather & having to hibernate have any lasting effects on the fish?