Does Barometric Pressure Really Affect Catch Rates?

[archilles2]

Gooday gooday Raiders,

Pity i missed the social i had two christenings on over the weekend! looked like a great day out

Anyhoo, i know we've covered this topic before,

however i want to know if anyone has personally experienced a difference in catch rates

due to barometric pressure - and if so why you think it has made a difference ?

Edited September 14, 2009 by archilles2

[jewgaffer]

Gooday gooday Raiders,

......Pity i missed the social i had two christenings on over the weekend! looked like a great day out

Anyhoo, i know we've covered this topic before,

however i want to know if anyone has personally experienced a difference in catch rates

due to barometric pressure - and if so why you think it has made a difference ?

Hi Archie...I'll give you just two recent examples, remember you are only talking about fishing estuaries and peak bite times according to accompanying condition changes and appropriate bite tides......

Ok, the social took place on Sunday......After three freezing cold nights until Saturday's balmy change relief, one of which nights I fished the upper Georges land based with Cungee George, the Wednesday night it was...... We fished two hours each side of the top and caught two toadies on chicken gut on the bream rods nothing else at all..... we caught nothing on the jew rods which were multi baited with whole trimmed up dead baits and used various bloodied fish fillets plus we used fresh arrow squid heads, tubes and streamer baits- not even a bite mark on the big baits, and zilch in two live bait traps which were placed where they'd do best..... Pressure remained high and good but constantly ongoing which is bad as we should have been there while it was peaking either way- fish were caught down there before sunrise on the same morning- we hadn't done any planning to fish the night before or early in the morning when we should have, the bite times- We fished at night, so consequently we had missed the boat for the sake of going down there on a whim after a catch up and a coffee at George's place which is in walking distance from the particular rock platform ..........

Last Saturday morning changed to balmy everyone would have felt this around 11am, everyone got fish in Botany Bay, mainly trevally and flathead.....

A 30 degree heat wave arrived on Sunday- social boats found day fishing hard going- water temp 16 degrees at best in the bay...... Fishraider member Snaper got into the squid at Kurnell...Snaper and his uncle put the squid jigs on after having lots of follows on bait and sp/s...squid had hardly any opposition at all in the best weed beds on the Kurnell side....Upriver was a surprising 18 degrees on Sunday at the same time as the cold water came into the Bay with the run in tide during the social-

Meanwhile, Chris/Jewdreamer fished the top flathead spots upriver early for zilch and then moved into the Bay to fish in the social...Note this- By yesterday morning, the weather had suddenly changed from the hot conditions on Sunday to as cool as it is now... Keeping the cool change in mind, yesterday morning the next day after Sunday's heat wave, a well known fisherman who regularly fishes from Lugarno upriver caught lots of fish- flathead, tailor, trevally and four soapies around the same tide and area where Chris and his friend had fished the day before for zilch..... Chris and his friend are locals to the area and know what they're doing.....Put two and two together and look up the conditions since last Thursday and fish on and accordingly from there.....

Cheers

jewgaffer

Edited September 15, 2009 by jewgaffer

[archilles2]

Thanks for that great reply Jewgaffer, so would you recommend i look up baro pressure and sea temps since last Thursday to see if I can pick the better conditions where fish were more likely to bite ?

I was under the impression that high barometric pressure is better when fishing ?

[anthony f]

Yes, with some fish affected more than others. Bass are a classic example, In fact the other other arvo I was in the middle of a hot session as a front approached as soon as the front hit that was the end of that and we could not get another hit no-matter what was tried even though it was just getting dark.

[DerekD]

I think Achilles2 raises a good point about barometric pressure. I hear a lot of stories about it and have never worried about it as I figured if I wait for perfect conditions then I would rarely get out.

Here is the question. Why would it put fish off the bite? I have heard of expected tide levels being different from expected due to low or high barometric pressure but in the scheme of things it would be only a few inches here and there. Air pressure is at sea level is 101.3kPa or 1 Bar which is more or less equivalent to 10m of water column. The air pressure changes of a few inches would have negligible changes on the pressure within the water column and that could be easily compensated for by the fish moving up or down very slightly in the water column to match. The sum result of air pressure changes should be negligable for the fish. Remember that most fish will move up and down through the water column throughout the day. On top of that for saltwater fishes the water pressure due to daily tidal movement would be more noticeable than the air pressure changes.

I can understand temperature having a far greater effect on the feeding patterns of fish. Thinking about it now it may be that the pressure changes and the related movement of the water body may affects the thermocline in the water and it is the related temperature fluctuations that put the fish off their food.

The other possible reason for putting fish off their food is the wind resulting from air moving from a high pressure zone to a low pressure zone havng a turn over effect on the water bodies.

Does anyone have a theory on why the pressure changes put the fish off?

[fisherman1994]

that's an eyeopener to me, i never thought about the effects barometric pressure would have on the fish..

Cheers JB

[twoblues]

Do fish just swim around looking for something to eat?

Surely there aint much else to do down there?

But if fish are opportunistic feeders and basically lazy buggers, a bit like myself, then maybe they don't feel the need to grab a feed for the hack of it.

Is it just possible that with a change in barometric pressure, the winds bring along fresh food at the start of the food chain? Like bugs, cicadas and anything else that can be blown into the water. So the fish don't really need to "go looking", because a barometric change will bring fresh food to them.

I've never seen a fish actually starve to death (apart from my kids' goldfish).

Just a theory.

Twoblues.