Whether you’re a salt- or freshwater angler, you’ll have to determine when the best time is to fish.
Temperature, sunlight, weather patterns, wind and tidal flows all have quite a significant impact on whether you return home happy and bragging or disappointed and empty handed. For instance, one would associate summer days with good fishing, but too many successive hot days will probably have an unwelcome effect on river/dam/lake fishing as water with unusually high temperature will reduce the oxygen and make the fish lethargic and slow and therefore unwilling to take your offering.
Fisherman’s Weather
Beat the breeze
As an angler, you can make the wind work for you. It might not be particularly pleasant fishing in gusty conditions but it could be advantageous and you might just end up with a smile and prize fish to show for it. Wind tends to push bait and baitfish to the shore, and where there’s baitfish, there’s always something bigger hunting them. Should you be fishing from shore, you would want to cast directly into the wind, as difficult as that might become sometimes, and if you’re fishing from a boat, cast with the wind towards shore.
Keep a close eye on fronts
Most fish are fairly sensitive to barometric changes and much of your success will depend on changing weather conditions. Many species increase their hunting just before a cold front hits, but will slow down or stop feeding once the storm or cold front commences and for a while after. It is therefore not advisable to go out immediately after a cold front as the fishing will be wretched for a day or two after the front has passed. Warm fronts on the other hand could have the opposite effect. Surface temperatures would rise during warm fronts and will spur the fish into feeding. This is often true during winter months, when warmer water may rouse fish from their sluggish winter behaviour and cause them to feed. What’s more, most of the feeding will occur at the surface where the water’s warmer.
