John Bailey – The Kingfisher Diaries
May 6th 2010
Falling Pressure, High Expectations
Strange. Around the 29th April, the barometer began to drop steadily and increase its rate of fall into the Bank Holiday weekend. I was out on the lake on the Saturday and the Bank Holiday Monday both and the latter day, especially, was quite horrendous. At 6.00 a.m. air temperature was down to 4º and throughout the morning there were scattered periods of sleet. The wind, as predicted, was pretty much directly from the north, strong and bitingly cold. 
Now, I think there are two interesting results of this dramatic change in the weather. Firstly, the very obvious good news. The carp continued to be very active making this April opening hugely successful. Luke, for example, continued to catch numbers of thirties and Dan had a spectacular night or two. The carp, also, were very visibly active at periods, crashing far out very tantalizingly.
For the tench boys - John Gilman and I particularly - the news wasn't nearly as hot. In fact, our catch rate absolutely plummeted. On Bank Holiday Monday morning, for example, the net result of all the effort was a single, solitary fish and a couple of twitches. The odd decent fish rolled but nothing big by Kingfisher standards hit the net. Both species are cyprinids and broadly related but falling pressure obviously has a completely different impact on them both.
It's also interesting that in my experience, falling pressure and falling temperatures like these have a completely different effect on carp on the more shallow estate lakes where most of my carping apprenticeship was carried out. A wind from the north on these much more shallow waters nearly always resulted in a complete killing of sport. In fact, going back through my diaries, I can hardly find a fish caught in these conditions. Lakes would go absolutely, totally dead for the duration of the low pressure. It's easy to put the reason down to the simple factor of water depth. But is this, in fact, the case?
So, as I always say, until fish learn to talk the fascination of our sport will always remain.