John Bailey – The Kingfisher Diaries
March 12th 2010
Taking the Temperature
Rob and Phil are up for their annual end of season bash on the Norfolk rivers. Roach are very much the target species but if a chub or a barbel were to come along I don't think they'd be complaining. It's now very close to the end of the season and, when I met them the other night, they were struggling. In fact, after two days, the roach tally stood at one fish at eight or ten ounces.
We all know what we're all thinking! Otters and cormorants and pretty well nothing left to fish for. But are we right?
Apparently, yesterday, Phil asked Rob to light up the Kelly kettle while he took the water temperatures - 38º Fahrenheit! He's just phoned me to say that the temperature hasn't fluctuated a fraction. It's still 38º Fahrenheit. 
Now, think what that means. The water is freezingly cold. You can forget barbel of course and even chub are going to be difficult. And roach, you're really scratching. Okay, I know fish do get used to constantly low temperatures like this but it still means that feeding patterns are really hammered on the head.
It makes me think of some of the bleak chubbing sessions I've ‘enjoyed' this winter. I suppose I've come away, often fishless, dreading the worst, dreading the work of the otters. Or, simply, has the water been too stone cold? Remember that the weather has improved these last few weeks so what on earth were the temperatures like back in January for example? My gut feeling is, therefore, perhaps it's possible to write stretches of the river off prematurely.
A last thought. With water temperatures so low, so far into March, what is the spring carp and tench fishing going to be like on our lakes? We're used to looking for tench so early on in the year - I've even been writing about it in the last day or two. Is this year going to be more like seasons back in the Sixties when the first tench began to appear sometime in May?