If your found your way to this page you're tired of getting skunked when you go fishing, and by skunked I mean not catching a single fish on a day out on the lake or stream. Often you'll hear fishermen say They weren't biting‚ or Must be a cold front, or maybe you heard To Nice of a day‚ yeah us fisherman are full of excuses. Most of the time you can avoid the skunk by changing your pattern or by using your brain to adapt to changing weather conditions.
When fish are biting there's usually a reason like an incoming storm or front which turn the fish on, but when fish aren't biting it's often due to being on the wrong side of a weather pattern. However, just because a cold front or other weather pattern moves in doesn't mean your day is shot you only need to adjust your fishing presentation and location for the situation. Here are several tough fishing conditions and things you can do to decrease your chance of getting skunked.
Tough Fishing Conditions and What to Do
- Cold Fronts - The devil themselves when it comes to fishing, cold fronts can make a what you would think would be a great day to a bad day. But fish don't completely shut off when a cold front moves in they just move to a new location and are a bit pickier. Fish such as bass and trout will move to structure such as wood. During a cold front you will want to thoroughly fish structure slowly and with smaller baits. A tube texas rigged or a small spinnerbait slow rolled through wood or rocks will pick up bass during cold fronts.
- Blue Bird Skies - It's beautiful out and there's not a cloud in the sky and there's no wind to be found a fisherman's dream right? WRONG! Blue bird skies are a bad thing when fishing and it can make for a tough day, but fish still can be found and caught. Fish move out to deeper structure during these types of days. My favorite blue bird sky fishing spots are deep-water humps or deep-water structure like brush piles or submerged trees. Fish will move to these locations to escape the bright sunlight and or follow baitfish that move out during bright days. Good bait choices during blue bird skies are Carolina Rigs, Deep Diving Crankbaits, Plastic Worms, and Tubes. If your fishing for trout during the spring months a bright day can be your friend if the warm weather kicks off a hatch in this case you will want to match the hatch and target rising trout. During the summer months however trout will move to holes or cooler water and feed on nymphs during bright days.
- To Windy - Nonsense! There's no such thing as to windy! These are my favorite days to fish. During windy days the wind breaks up the top of the water and it pushes baitfish to the bank where predator fish lie awaiting an easy meal. Yes it's hard to hold the boat or cast but the trick is to either use more weight or use baits that you can keep in constant contact with the lure such as crankbaits, spinnerbaits, lipless crankbaits, and jerk baits. Fish areas that the wind is blowing right into the bank and the harder the wind is blowing the better windy days are fish feeding days and usually are on the front end of a front such as a storm or cold front and tha's when fish feed. If you're a surf fishermen a windy day will often be your best day as long as the wind is blowing into the shore which brings baitfish to the surf and the big boys will follow them into the surf to feed.
So next time your out and it's looking like your going to get skunked use your head and think about where the fish moved to or what else they might be biting on. Fish will always feed it's just a mater of you finding them and presenting them with the right bait.