Timing....

[Skeff]

I've always been fascinated by coincidences and patterns... Yesterday morning, I hooked a thirty pound common on Ashmead as the last chime of Big Ben sounded 8am. At exactly the same second, a friend hooked another good common from a completely different part of the wetland. Then this morning, another member hooked a 19 pounder at.... 07.55. I wonder what the trigger was that caused such specific feeding? Or is it just coincidence??

I see Tel landed the Parrot from Wasing this morning. I bet he hooked it at eight o'clock!

[Santiago]

In all probability it's just a coincidence! And there's no other reasonable explanation. The other day I phoned my sister who had literally just picked up her phone to call me; another coincidence unless you believe in telepathy!

If carp are feeding in the morning in one lake because of good conditions then they're most likely feeding in other lakes experiencing similar conditions. But no doubt some one will come along with a irrational explanation to satisfy ones need for the mystical! Perhaps it's all related to string theory and all the carp are connected by ethereal strings.

[JAA]

Humans are designed to look for and identify patterns. We also tend to notice only the times that a thing happens that fits the pattern and conveniently forget or don't notice all the times 'nothing actually happened'. It's called confirmation bias.

This even gets built into ones memory of events and on recall can seem pretty convincing evidence of pattern or linkage between events. It's an illusion, sadly.

[Gurn]

I would say that at that time the light was good enough to see the hookbait, but not good enough to see the rig attached to it.
Of course you will know , Skeff, that traditionally dawn and dusk are great times to catch fish, but we also know that a carp will eat at any time day or night.
So, I don't think that dawn and dusk are special feeding times, just that light levels optimise our chances of the bait being picked up.

[Santiago]

There's nothing like a touch of confirmation bias, especially when coupled with the placebo effect! Human kind likes to think they're a rational species! Yet the more scientists discover about how our brains actually work the more they realise how irrational we are!

[JAA]

There's nothing like a touch of confirmation bias, especially when coupled with the placebo effect! Human kind likes to think they're a rational species! Yet the more scientists discover about how our brains actually work the more they realise how irrational we are!

For all the biases and cognitive errors, 'you' are still a sample size of 'one' so anything which happens to just 'yourself', (out of seven billion) is very very unlikely to be significant. Luckily we've all been given big egos so we think we're all very significant.

[Dave Burr]

Well I'm with Skeff on this one. I can think of lots of occasions - especially in winter when feeding spells are shorter - when fish have switched n and off like clockwork. Ask any winter perch angler about the predictability of feeding time. How often have I heard that the only fish of the day on 9 miles of a river, came within minutes of each other?

I have spent a couple of days on my carp lakes and have noticed that at 3pm sharp, the fish (of all species) start to show with much more regularity presumably when the lakes temperature reaches it's highest of the day or, alternatively, at the moment the light begins to fade. I cannot however, equate it to fish picking up baits as my only 'success' was a one eyed common of about 3lbs.

Even if it is just 'the law of averages', never ignore these so called coincidences. One day it may save you from a blank.

[Aitch]

I once saw a load of carp start head and shouldering at Holyfield fishery on the stroke of 11am... it signalled the start of two hours of feeding where several carp were caught across the lake, then at 1 pm all activity ceased... I think like all shoal or herd creatures, carp have habitual times of feeding... The larger the fish, the less likely it is to shoal, but the instinct would still be within it to feed at set times

[Tengisgol]

You could set your watch, c3:45pm, by the roach coming on the feed at Breamore all those years ago. That was light values every time.

[Santiago]

Just goes to show that the probability of catching increases when the majority of fish start feeding. So what's new? In the summertime I can set my watch at 10 pm by the bites that result in catching proper bream (not skimmers). Every day for the summer months they feed from 10pm until about 1pm at a push. So naturally there's a pattern!