Barometric Pressure limitations

Your inputs with regard to BP too high and or too low to find and or ketch fish. I am a firm believer in drastic changes and will not fish when the bp spikes to over 30.4.
There has been discussion on the high end, what about the low end ?

I hate low pressure.. usually comes with clouds and it tends to scatter fish. Give me high pressure and sun so put the fish where I am looking. Fish have to eat no matter the pressure and can offset the pressure by moving up and down in the water column. Makes no difference to whether they bite or not IMO.

I have to fish everyday regardless of pressure. I have noticed over the years that high pressure tends to make fish be more consistent to structure...and easier to catch. For example...2 or 3 days of somewhat high pressure...blue skies and same direction wind makes for easy Fishing.

Changing in pressure, especially dropping pressure will cause Fish to spread out and move off of structure.

Sometimes it can work to your advantage if you are fishing the lake where fish prefer to school and surface feed. Typically… These are the conditions were this happens. The problem is… Even if you are fishing on a lake where this happens… It doesn’t happen consistent enough to rely on it. And, if they do not school… The low-pressure scatters the fish enough that It can make it very difficult to find and catch fish.

As a guide, I prefer Fishing sunny days...same direction wind for at least 2 days. But, u gotta make it happen every day regardless of high or low pressure, lol

Really good info, Michael. Thanks fur sharing. This weekend warrior just go when I can and doing pay attention to this stuff lol

I almost never check pressure. I check the weather prior to fishing and use my electronics etc to find and catch fish. I believe Mr Borg has been on a trip with me we’re the fish won. Pressure does make a difference but I prefer not to let it dictate if I fish or don’t fish.

All good reads, spread out is an understatement to myself and a bunch of others. The areas that typically hold "catchable " fish don't appear to have fish, nor any bait anywhere in the water column or on the bottom.
The same catching methodologies have to be thrown out the window,down sizing flukes,slabs with flies tied above,live bait, swim baits,cranks,boat moving with or against the wind, spot locked on ambush areas etc .!
I, we are missing something, and that's an understatement. I don't want to come across argumentative, just real frustrated.
Thank you one and all.

I'm a weekend warrior like Todd, can't always rely on what BP, weather, moon phase etc... is doing. Whatever the BP is hi or low, I prefer consistency. If BP is hi and has been for a couple days we can ussually find biting fish, same as super low BP. When weather changes drastically from one day to next it can be tough for me. I just make sure the boat is full of gas and I have a few extra beers in cooler for scouting. My favorite conditions on PK is a low south wind, post spawn BP headed towards the higher side 30 - 30.3 just had my best days under those conditions. What ever happens on the lake it's better than a 12 hour day at work.

I saved this from 2013 by Tarponfly.

Here is my opinion on the air pressure: Air pressure affects a fish's swimbladder as it rises and falls.

http://www.usairnet.com/weather/conditions/?station=KADS

From what I have come up over the years, the fish are more comfortable in a range from 29.85 to 30.10.

If the Air Pressure is 30.40, or higher, I will cancel your trip.

If the Air Pressure is 29.60, or lower, I will cancel your trip.

If the air pressure is 30.50 or higher, you are going to have a hard time even snagging a carp turd. I stay home and I won't even go fishing.

The reason I will cancel your trip sometimes are due to the air pressure, and I will give you an option to pick a new day, or go out anyways and only catch a couple. So if I call you before the trip and say: " you have an option" : that means I don't like the something about the weather, and I'd prefer we pick another day. I like to limit every trip and then possibly go limit on Sandies after crappie, or vice versa. If the pressure is out of wack, we are not going to do that.



Now, this is not by the book. This is all what I have noticed while fishing. Sometimes they will bite when the air pressure is all wacky, but 90% of the time, the air pressure, will prove itself.

I find that fish 15 ft or shallower are most affected by the rising and falling of barometric air pressure. The fish in deeper water, are already pressurized, due to the water pressure as you go deeper, so they don't seem to be as affected as the shallower fish. Again, this will only tell you why the fish have slowed down and are not biting anymore. There is nothing you can do about it, but wait it out till it stabilizes or just go home.

As an example:



This is a perfect day with the air pressure. You read it from the bottom up. The top number is current and the bottom number is hours ago. As you can see, the pressure is going up, but its rising slow and steady. That's a perfect day to fish in that scenario.



Now, the pic above is a very bad bad day to fish. We start at 29.83 and the pressure plummets all day and won't stop dropping. This really will shut the fishing down to a trickle or non at all.

My rule:

Example: If the pressure is at 29.87 and drops two points to 29.85, the fishing will slow down a bit. If it drops or rises .02 or more, your fishing trip might be a site seeing trip.

If it rises or falls .01 at time, you should be fine.

If it rises more than .02 fishing is slow.

If it falls .02 or more fishing is slow.

If its steady, or rising .01 or falling .01 every hour, fishing is good.

If the pressure rises or falls more than .05 an hour, I'll just go home.

I am pretty sure, a couple of you guys were out yesterday Crappie fishing Sandbass fishing or hybrid fishing, and that 830 in the morning the fish completely stopped biting. The air pressure had risen .02 points at a time within the hour and then it started to drop rapidly as the storm front started to roll through.

Example: We were fishing yesterday morning at Rowllet creek, as soon as we got there we started to pick up hybrids left and right every single cast. Then at about 830 the fishing completely stopped dead in its tracks. The air pressure had risen .02 points and and the fish completely stopped biting. We could see 20 to 30 hybrids sitting right in front of us but would not even budge. And again, there's nothing you can do about it, either wait it out or go home and come back when the air pressure stabilizes. I see this happen to me almost on a daily basis. I save the link in my smart phone, and refreshes every hour as I'm guiding to tell me what's going on under the waters surface

T-fly just uses those numbers as excuses when he can't catch them. When the pressure rises .2 all the fish has to do is swim up or down in the water column to adjust the pressure back. With the pressure swings around here, the fish would never eat according to his calculations. For example, pressure was rapidly rising last spring after a major cold front and I was pulling in Hybrids and sandies left and right and they all told me when I caught them that they forgot to check the air pressure LOL.

Well you can take it for what it’s worth. I’ve used the formula since he put it out. I fish year round and several times a week. Sure I’ve caught fish on both ends of the pressure but it’s not great. The thing I’ve found to be most reliable is if the pressure rises or falls 2 or more points in an hour the bite will slow. I’ve been fishing on many occasions and the bite is off the charts good then the pressure went up 5 points or the bottom fell out of it. The bite shut off like a light switch. Like most I’m not going to base my trip on the barometer but I’m watching it and find it to be reliable 100% of the time.

There was another thread a while back on this topic. Same type discussion. Someone gave calculations on water pressure indicating that a fish only had to move up or down in the water column 2-3 feet to compensate for the BP change.
Someone else posted a study done on RF tagged crappie. As I recall, the results of the study indicated the crappie forgot their calculator, or at least how to use it. When the pressure changed up or down quickly per hour, the crappie in shallow water, left the shallow water and moved out to water 20-25 ft deep. The crappie might have settled at 12-15 ft deep but were no where near the shallow water they were in 2 hours earlier.
I won't argue with the math on BP or water pressure, but the fish didn't get the memo stating they just had to move a couple feet to feel good.
This may not apply to whites/hybrids, but my guess is they move also.

Some great info here! To bad I couldn't stop laughing at Joe Slabs Carp turd comment.

Yeah I laughed about that too. I can’t take credit for that or the post. It belongs to Tarponfly from 2013. I just had it saved and reposted it.

Anyone that thinks Barometric pressure(NUMBERS) does`nt have any effect on fish and their behavior should do a little bit more fishing.IMHO:I don`t have a Dog in this fight but as far as Tarpon Fly goes,numbers aside ....well he does have known CREDENTIALS for what he speaks.There are some that don`t. The Haters

Boyles Law and Charles Law are for real. If The BP doesn't affect the fishes swim bladder,changing their behavior from active biting fish to non biting fish. As the BP falls, where do they go ??

Two questions for you that answering might inform your own thoughts on BP:

1) How much depth variation do you think a bass might experience over the course of a normal day? That is, do you think it might range from, say, being 4 feet deep at times . . . to 12 feet deep? So, do most bass float and swim around at depths that vary 6, 8 or 10 feet, maybe more?

2) Do you think that a bass that occupies different levels of depths over a day, do you think it can discern the differences in pressure it feels from the depth it occupies (more pressure when deeper) differently than the pressure it feels from the air column pushing down on top of the water?

No, not trick questions. Curious as I think this solves it, makes anglers' minds up about the topic, how they answer.

Brad

Ken, that was me. Sorry, I didn't see page 1 here before I posted a minute ago with a few questions.

No, not 2 or 3 feet. A BIG swing in Barometric pressure ranges, say a full point, would only require a fish to move up or down in the water column by an inch or so. I'd need to go back and check my math again.

And, my point, then and now, is that fish move up and down in the water column all day long, every day, experience different pressures just like we do as we move up and down, say, after diving into the water. Everyone knows the ears begin to hurt at 10 feet or more.

The pressure is real. The WATER pressure is real. So, fish experience different water pressures, for certain, it's just that the air pressure variable is such a very, very tiny addition up or down.

So, a fish is supposed to be able to discern these minor fluctuations in pressure from air pushing down on water from the pressure of it moving up or down "routinely" in the water column all day long? How? Why?

No, the BP, to the extent it works, is just strongly associated with certain weather events. We do know that fish are affected by wind vs. dead water, clear skies vs. clouds, those sorts of things. It's these sorts of weather events that change fish behavior, not some particular very minor source of pressure on them. They live in pressure variances much more extreme than ours.

The one notation about fish cutting on and off from what, 29.85 to 29.87 . . . like two-hundredths of a point? C'mon! That is so far beyond silly, I wouldn't even know how to respond.

Brad

Barometric Pressures and equivalent related water depths in "feet of water":

29.50 = 33.422'
29.92 = 33.898' (one atmosphere)
30.00 = 33.989'
30.50 = 34.555'

Brad

Stripers, Sandies and Hybrids are the fish I am referring to. As they swim all day long and evidently have a much larger swim bladder than non-pelagic species of fish! Someone with biological expertise will probably confirm or knock out this assumption .

Good point, gborg. Different fish species have different needs as regards swim bladder size to live their "lifestyles."

My little chart just shows how little a fish need move up or down in the water column to offset the changes in atmospheric pressure even in big swings taking hours or even days to complete. My thoughts have always been "big deal," as the distance is so very minor compared to the depth range they move in . . . all day long without effects. That, and how in the world could a bass discern the difference between the pressure it'd feel from swimming around and that minor amount caused by air pushing down on water.

Now, barometric pressure and weather effects, we've got something!

Hope the chart helps.

Brad

You are the biggest Tool on the planet. It’s confirmed by Hubble.