Watch the weather and activity tables

[CommonSense Guy]

I am a believer in fishing weather fronts and have been paying attention to game activity tables. After yesterday I am a believer. Was fishing right before that front moved in right in the middle of a minor jump. Stuck a 44" trolling but that's not the best part. Also, caught a fat 28" walleye that weighed 8lbs.

I hear Mehsikomer follows these charts religiously. Gives you a little motivation to be on the water.

[ZOKU]

I found this post interesting... only because I posted this yesterday after getting skunked on 'Tonka:

Did anyone else fish 'Tonka today?

I did a little digging yesterday evening and began looking at weather patterns and the conditions yesterday. The barometric pressure actually began falling Thursday during the late afternoon/early evening hours. It steadied itself throughout the evening but then continued falling again very early Friday morning where it eventually reached its low before the storm. I verified that data via information I found on our Doppler Radar system at work... (I work for Northwest Airlines and had a co-worker in our department take a look at the data from yesterday for me)

According to information I found here: Barometric Pressure Analysis

The best fishing conditions should have actually occurred on Thursday (when I didn't fish at all) With that said, does anyone closely watch the barometric pressure to verify fishing conditions? I found a few other articles online in regards to the barometric pressure and how it affects fishing conditions and there are a lot of "pro's" who won't even bother dropping a line in the water if the pressure has reached its high or low for the day... i.e., bottoming out.

I just know that I threw everything but the kitchen sink at 'em yesterday from 6 a.m. - 2:30 p.m. and didn't catch anything 'cept *one* bass. Perhaps there is some validity to my slow day yesterday... obviously, Commonsense Guy did much better. I don't know what I 'should' have been doing yesterday between the hours of 6 a.m. and approximately 11 a.m. when the stormed in and my window of opportunity closed... so to speak. I'm trying to justify the fact that I skunked yesterday. But I'm honestly looking for knowledge to better understand how these weather system do or do not affect our fishing conditions.

I know presentation, type of lure, lure color, etc, etc. all play a part in fishing... but does anyone think that there are some days *NOTHING* will work because of the barometric pressure? Or if not, how do you alleviate the fact that the barometric pressure is extremely low due to an impending storm front? How do you adapt? What do you do differently? Per the article I posted, when the barometric pressure has reached its peak or its low... the fish will typically move out to deeper water. Slower presentations are a *MUST* Ripping a buzzbait across the surface (as I did most of the morning yesterday) will *typically* yield very poor results. I say "typically" because I honestly think each fish has its own personality and will sometimes do something (like bite a lure despite the barometric pressure reading) simply because it can. In regards to deeper water and slower presentations, I'm just wondering what everyone is doing? How do you fish slower? Jig & Pig? Slow spinnerbait? Live bait? slow deep diving crank bait?

Sorry for the lengthy post...

EDIT: Obviously, this information doesn't apply to simply the Pike/Muskie species... I can only assume that most/all fish species are somehow affected by the barometric pressure to some degree.

[Muskydanno]

I am a true believer in the pre-front weather thing , and even more so the moon phases. I don't watch the barometer but i pay alot of attention to the wind and whether a front condition is on the way or not. I can tell you the skis were biting friday morning and sunday morning before the squall blew through where we were at!! Then a few claps of thunder and the wind switched from the north and bingo!! off like a light switch. My experience has been that you are usually going to hit about a 30 minute window of crazy action before the storm or frontal system , you just have to have an idea when it will happen and time accordingly. Just use common sense when that lightning hits and hit the road!!

[Random guy]

Definitely! I was famous for getting stuck on Pelican Island on Leech in a storm. If there was a storm rolling in I would blast out to the rock piles and fish as long as I could, sometimes longer then I should’ve. I can definitely say that the half hour before a storm is one serious trigger. I like to look back through fish pictures and see what the weather was like in the photos, a lot of storms in the backgrounds of some of the nicer fish.

[CommonSense Guy]

I have heard that the fish shut down immediately when there is a storm. ON saturday we caught a fish a half hour before the storm, then had to beach our boat and wait it out once it got really bad. But once the rain let up we were back on the water and there was lightening in the distance and plenty of thunder. My third cast I had a fish blow up on topwater. We could see fish porpusing on the surface. They seemed very active even through all that weather.