Not Where but When to Fish?

Conditions tell us when to fish – and when not to

Where and how are important – but is the when just as important?

Plenty is written in the angling press of ‘how’ to fish, be it the latest rig, rod or bait, with experts telling just how to tie the rig and what bait to put on the hook. There is plenty of discussion on the ‘where’, using watercraft, local knowledge and the ever important issue of keeping certain swims secret. But what seems to be overlooked most of the time is the when to fish.

There is the topic that at some waters the fish will feed at certain times and then switch off, but it seems that most of the ‘experts’ in the angling press don’t realise how it could help ordinary anglers and especially beginners to understand ‘when’ to go fishing and when to stop at home.

Dull and mild is ideal

For most people fishing is a weekend activity or a few hours in the evening in summer, so you need to make the most of your fishing time. What you don’t want to do is spend what few hours you have fishing when there’s less chance of catching.

Right, let’s get match anglers out of the way now; you are tied to the times of the matches so there’s little you can do about that. But for the pleasure angler you need to be fishing at the optimum time to catch, but when is that?

The early or late approach is best

When to fish in Summer

Well, in summer I’ve found that either getting up early and fishing from dawn till midday or arriving at the water about 4 or 5 o’clock and fishing till dusk the best times. Getting to the bank around 11 o’clock and fishing till about 4ish will work but personally I find I catch more with the early or late approach.

When to fish in Winter

When should you fish in winter? A cold, clear, sunny day or an overcast, damp mild day? Well, I guess most on FM would opt for the overcast day but this is something that is very rarely mentioned in the angling press. It may say in an article that the fishing was poor due to the weather conditions, and wind direction is often mentioned, but little else.

Imagine if you were a beginner and you had the choice of fishing Saturday or Sunday, you check the weather forecast and find Saturday is going to be bright, clear day but cold, whereas Sunday will be overcast, damp and mild. Which should they choose to fish, well a nice bright day, wrap up against the cold might seem better than overcast damp weather?

Cold, clear and icy – it doesn’t get much worse

Standing a better chance

I’m not saying you can’t catch in the ‘wrong’ conditions but that you would stand a better chance in the ‘right’ conditions and that at different venues things differ, also local knowledge goes a long way.

Now I know I’m preaching to the converted here but I think this advice should be stated a bit more often in the angling press, who are happy to keep churning out articles about plumbing the depth every few months. There is no need to go into too much detail about it in each article but maybe a dedicated piece on atmospheric pressure and water temperature could be written and how such conditions affect fish feeding. But a quick summing up of the weather conditions at the end of some articles and how these conditions affected the fishing, with maybe the expert stating the ideal weather conditions for the type of fishing undertaken.

As a slight aside how often do you see people fishing an inappropriate method given the weather conditions? Last Sunday I fished a stillwater and there were two other anglers fishing when I got there, both were fishing the pole. The weather was overcast and damp with a wind that kept gusting across the water.

It looks bad, but this is a good time to fish for barbel

I set up a quivertip rod and fished a feeder with maggot and liquidised bread. In just over an hour and a half I had caught a decent number of roach and skimmers with a nice perch to boot. I only packed in then due to brolly malfunction – it collapsed on me! As I packed up I noticed the two pole anglers having trouble keeping their floats from drifting due to the windy conditions, wouldn’t they have been better fishing the feeder? Or using a waggler rod and enough shot to keep a float in place?

Is it the modern way to automatically reach for the pole when fishing a small stillwater? Has the pole stopped anglers from trying other methods or is it that there is a generation of anglers who don’t know how to use anything but the pole when fishing? Undoubtedly in the right conditions the pole is a top method but anglers need to look at the weather conditions and adapt their approach.

Maybe this is something that those in the angling press could explain.