wind changes and wind direction

[coreynov902]

Just how much do you guys pay attention to the direction the wind is blowing out of and/or when the wind changes directions? My fishing partner and I are leaving tomorrow morning for a couple days of fishing and we've been paying pretty close attention to the weather (mostly the temperature) and in the last week we have seen the wind go from being out of the north, changing to being out the south, and now yesterday it switched back to being out of the north/northwest. We're going fishing no matter which direction it's blowing out of, but it just got me to thinking about whether it actually makes much of a difference? I always think back to the saying "wind from the east, fishing's the least...wind from the west, fishing's the best", but have never really paid a lot of attention to what direction the wind was out of when struggling (or having a great day) to see if that saying actually holds true.

[DrewFlu33]

I've not paid a ton of attention to it, but have noticed that the toughest days are often when it's blowing from the North or East. I'm of the belief that this has little to do with the wind direction, but instead that it has to do with the conditions that lead to the wind blowing from that direction--usually it's a post-front, high pressure type situation which I think is pretty universally thought of as "bad" conditions. Blowing from the West usually seems like "stable" conditions, at least in most of the US where that's the prevailing wind direction (I think portions of southern CA, TX, and FL have prevailing wind from the East, could be wrong on that...if that is true, it would be interesting to hear if their east/west experience is different), and blowing from the south often seems to be a pre-front type situation where we usually expect fish to bite really well.

[Quillback]

Around here a north or east wind is usually an indication of post frontal conditions where the humidity drops with the temps. IMO, it's more about the temp change than it is wind direction. We're getting some heavy rain today, south wind. Tomorrow the wind will be out of the north, but I anticipate some good fishing with the coves getting some dirty water, the bass will move into them and feed heavily - well at least they should, you never know sometimes until you get out there.

[Real L]

I fish a lot of large rivers and most of them flow from west to east. So when we get an east wind, the waves go against the current. This disperses the fish that, most of the time, face into the current and usually fishing is not as predictable.

[Skeeterbait]

Certain winds usually follow a front passing thru an area. The windy, bright sky, blue bird day following a front usually means poor fishing. That tends to correspond to a east wind in this area. Therefore the saying. As for fishing in the wind you have two choices. The comfort choice is find protected areas that break the wind. The other choice is fish coves and banks with inbound winds because that makes for rough chop and wind driven surface floating bait and forage. That can produce accumulation of bait fish, sometimes stunned by the breaking chop on banks and can turn fish on to feeding. Wind driven chop on red clay banks causes erosion and sweeps worms and other insects in the water so pay attention to wind swept breaking chop on eroding banks.

[Casslaw]

Drew I agree with you on what you’re saying. I always want to know how hard and what direction the wind has been blowing before I go. It tells me where the baitfish should be blown into, and how stable the conditions have been.

I heavily dislike winds at/above 15mph, especially in a tin!

[PJ-Rohlf]

I fish a lot of large rivers and most of them flow from west to east. So when we get an east wind, the waves go against the current. This disperses the fish that, most of the time, face into the current and usually fishing is not as predictable.

+1 on the rivers. Any time the wind is against the current it seems to make the fish not position like they would with any other wind around.

I agree with others about post frontal but I usually look at the news channel for how the fronts are moving rather than basing it on wind direction, or watching what the barometric pressure is doing.

[MarkG52]

Wind from the East, fish bite least, wind from the West, fish bite best. Not sure how true this old adage is, but....

[johnnybass]

Oldie but when Joe Bucher was asked what he did when there was an east wind, he said "yard work".

[TableRock55]

On this lake, a north wind with no generation, in my experience, is the worst. Quite often, here, the lousiest weather days often produce the best fishing days.

[DaveBrabec]

Here you have to pay attention or you will be coming back through 5-6 footers

[coreynov902]

Thanks for all the replies. We wound up getting a bit of a shifting wind on the first day, with it moving from NW to N to NE to E and then back eventually to more of a NW wind. It was pretty strong and we had our best luck fishing the wind-blown side of the lake where the water got stirred up a bit (water clarity was 6-8 feet in some areas, which is MUCH clearer than usual for this lake). The second day the wind was much calmer and came out of the S and SW. I can't say as I noticed any difference in the mood of the fish between the two days. Overall we caught a lot of fish, probably 30-50 each day, but not a single one bigger than 17 inches, which was very disappointing considering we go to this lake specifically because we know it has a good population of bigger fish in it. We threw almost everything we could think of, tried shallow and moved out to about 10-12 feet. We tried moving baits as well as bottom contact. We either just couldn't find the big ones or they were simply unwilling to bite. It was still a fun time though and the warm weather was a welcome change to the last couple years we've been there when the air temps have been mid 40's and windy.

[Walkabout7781]

I'd say it's more about temperature than wind direction, but when we get an East wind, nothing good is going to happen if you're fishing. It looks to me like an E. wind is usually coming down out of Alberta, so I blame the Canadians I know up there. When we get a high pressure cell, once the N. wind stops, that's about the most stable weather we get, as well as the most pleasent. We dread the "Pineapple Express" rain storms we get occasionally...yes, they suck enough to have a movie named for them. A couple of times, I thought I could actually smell the faint scent of pineapple.