What fishing weather is best?
Fishing weather is not a mystery, but it is not addressed quite enough. Most of the time, the worse it is on the fisherman, the better the fishing. Learning how this fishing tip will help you is very simple. Let's begin.
We will start with what most consider the “best” fishing day. It's sunny and bright in the morning and there isn't a cloud in the sky. If you are like most anglers it's your day off so YOU didn't choose the weather. As you load up the boat and head to the lake, you are optimistic that your trip will be great. You launch and head to your hot spot near that shoreline weed bed with the nice stick-up structure. You've hammered the bass here in the early part of the season so you figure this is a sure thing. After about an hour with only a couple small bass, and a bunch of bumps you wonder what's up. You throw everything but the tackle box, get frustrated and just figure the “bass aren't biting today”.
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You experienced the effect of high pressure on shallow bass. This affects both smallmouth and largemouth bass. The pressure is a source of speculation more than fact. The real cause is the amount of LIGHT getting to the bass. Clear water habitat will be affected greater than stained water. The lack of cloud cover, humidity and warmer air temperatures drives bass off shore to water that is deeper and more stable. The bass that stay, tend to be smaller and/or very inactive.
There are basically two solutions to this cold front fishing weather. Number one is watch the weather and don't fish the cold front. With limited days to fish, this is not the best answer. Option two is UNDERSTAND the cold front and fish anyway! Nobody likes a quitter. The good news is that a cold front is the toughest fishing weather in most locations. You need to accept the fact that fishing will be slower, and your homework will determine the size and number of bass you catch
Here's another good fishing tip. When you catch good sized cold front bass, record everything you did and where you were. The bass just told you where they spend most of their time. It will be deeper water but not too far from your “hot spot”. Typically it will be up to a few hundred feet for largemouth and possibly a bit farther for smallmouth. Smallmouth in clear water cold front conditions will be your greatest challenge if you don't pinpoint their movements and depth. You need to downsize your baits and line and slow down your presentations during tough fishing weather conditions. Keep colors natural and don't solely focus on shoreline fishing. You need to follow their migration route to deep water (greater than 8 feet deep).
So there is the worst case scenario. Now let's look at the best fishing weather Mother Nature provides. It's the type of weather that upsets MOST people. The work week has been great weather. That darn humidity went away, clear skies with a light breeze to keep the bugs off you. You look at the weekend forecast and seem gloom. Clouds move in on Friday with rain predicted for late day Saturday and Sunday. There goes the weekend, right? Wrong. Get your rain gear and bug dope together and get ready for some awesome fishing!
The humidity picks up significantly and the bugs start going nuts. All that bug slapping should wake you up to realize it's time to fish! Double layer clouds move in and the air goes dead still. You sweat just thinking about moving. What you didn't see is the bass are moving closer to shore one stop at a time. They are energized and on the feed. The closer to rain it gets, the more active they get. By the time the rain starts, some large fish and lots of smaller ones are on your hot spot. Where are you? Hopefully not pouting about the “unfortunate” weather this weekend.
The type of fishing weather you are confronted with should guide your presentations. You can not force bass to bite in cold front conditions after the spawn. You might get lucky and trigger a protective response from a male guarding his nest in spawn and pre-spawn though. Bass activity will move gradually from bad during the clear skies to great right as the rain starts. The good bites will continue for a while, then drop off as the rain moves out of the area. That is the cycle, and the more unstable the weather is (mid summer) the tougher the fishing can get. Heavy fishing pressure and recreational boating compound the problem. This is why most fisherman hang up their pole after the hot spring fishing dies down. You won't hopefully because you KNOW that bass will spend less and less time on the shoreline as summer progresses. Another “secret”, the bass will come back in for fall fishing.
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