Twelve months of carp fishing - summer break in July?

I want to start what was barely finished in June 2024; the love game. Unstable weather conditions, barely two days of sunshine in a row followed by torrential rain, resulting floods that barely subsided, rain and more rain. The vast majority of carp spawned anyway and relatively early in May, but it seemed that the really big and old roe had their problems getting rid of the roe in time. I found (my) dream carp floating dead in the water at the beginning of June, two days later another giant carp from my neighbourhood was found dead and I received feedback about apparently increased mortality of some very large dead carp in June 2024. Incidentally, in the case of my dream carp, I had still seen the roe from the broken abdominal wall. So it had certainly not yet spawned at the beginning of June. In the rivers, they seem to spawn even later due to the regular floods and some carp did not spawn until the end of June.

After finding my target fish, I was definitely very sad and fell into a real hole. The disillusionment I feared in the last blog became a bitter reality. But only until I was invited to go fishing in the Palatinate the following week. There was no sobriety and I also caught a 30.5 kg mirror angler. Sometimes you have to let go of something (the dream of the target fish) in order to be open to new things. Because every beginning has its own magic.
 

But by the end of June, the face of the impending July was already apparent. Somehow things weren't going so well. This is due to several factors. On the one hand, many carp in a water (depending on the water and fishing pressure, of course) have already been caught once in the spring and are now correspondingly more cautious in their feeding behaviour. Secondly, most of the natural food in the water is now seasonal. The carp's metabolism may be very high due to the water temperature, but it will eat less greedily because it is never completely hungry.

The higher water temperature, which can quickly exceed 25 degrees in July, also means that the water can absorb less oxygen. In heavily weedy waters in particular, this can also mean that the bites now tend to occur during the day because the aquatic plants consume additional oxygen in the dark. And then there is the issue of recovery. The carp have finished spawning and the subsequent feeding phase. Now the organism switches back to "normal operation" and the carp go into "rest mode". 

This is especially true for quarry ponds, natural lakes and reservoirs. That's why summer is also the time to give a river or canal a try. Or should you just leave the rods alone for a few weeks and take the family to the water or go on holiday, party or do some intensive sport? The fact is that it's better to slow down in July and perhaps devote yourself to something else, as the hot phase starts again at the end of August. But more on that in the next column.

Have fun on the water
Your Alexander Kobler