Tidal River and Weather

1486 Views 8 Replies 3 Participants Last post by KeithsCatch, Apr 4, 2007

Jared

Discussion Starter · Apr 4, 2007

Well, last weekend I went to Cooper River, which is a coastal lowlands tidal river, and the air temps were in the mid to upper 80s. As a matter of fact the past couple weeks have been the same weather.. air temps low80s to upper 80s.. even low 90s a piece here and there.

Water temps last weekend on Cooper River were in the low 60s.

Last night and today we have started to get some storms and some rain and tonight the temps are supposed to drop out and Thursday, Friday and Saturday the highs are suppose to be in the low 60s and they are calling for lows in the mid to upper 30's.

I cant help but wonder how it will affect the fish in the river Saturday.

Part of me thinks this way:
With Saturday being the 3rd day of lower air temps, the fish should be adjusted by then so it should be business as
usual.

AND

It's a river and it's tidal so the weather will not affect the fish anywhere near as much as it would were they in a lake. Tidal is the greatest dictator in their life.

AND

My fish should be right where i left them, living their life with the current and tide.

Now the other part of me thinks:
CRAP CRAP CRAP! LOL!!! The fishing is gonna be all messed up and my fish I found will be long gone!

Honestly I dont know which part of me should win the battle. What do yall think? All thoughts, advice and tips would be greatly appreciated

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Ouachita

· #5 · Apr 4, 2007

The single most significant factor about tidal rivers is that those differ from others mostly by the effects of the tidal forces. Weather enters in but over a season-long period, the daily changes having very little effect compared to the tides. It takes a lot of cold air a lot of days to chill river water past the first foot of depth. It takes a lot of dynamics to warm a body of water, especially a river. Current works against both warming and cooling. An overnight cold front doesn't change much about any river with decent depth in the spring. I'd say the bass will remain on schedule, on a daily basis close to where they were yesterday, maybe a little deeper and closer to structure than to shallow cover, if in fact the water temperature dropped a couple degrees. I don't put much thinking into the surface cooling down while deeper water remains stable. I carry a simple pool thermometer on a string to compare temps at various depths.

Jim

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Ouachita

· #6 · Apr 4, 2007

I'm a believer in the red trap too. I've recommended it countless times while fishing, but not many figure out how to fish it. Cranking it the same way every trip won't help catch fish consistently. It has to get in front of the bass and must be attractive to them. Keeping a steady rattle on a steady retrieve doesn't do much for the surprise factor, important for a reaction bite. Sometimes I'd rather swim it barely enough to keep it out of trouble then sweep it suddenly to get a burst of rattle. I use many variations of retrieves, bumping the tips of plants, pausing and ripping, using a variety of speeds and trying several depths. A long rod helps alter the Trap's course, ripping it from my right then from my left. Anyway, it's like any other lure, we need to exploit all possible ways of presenting it. The more presentations you can do, the fewer types of lures needed in the boat.

That brings me to another thing. While I might not NEED one of every kind of lure, multiplying the effectiveness of a few favorites by the factor of presentations, I carry a lot of lures of every type yet know a lot of presentations. If you have one lure but know 5 presentations, you effectively have 5 lures. If you can figure out ways to get that lure deep as well as shallow, multiply that 5 by 2 for 10 lures. What really gets my goat is to run across boaters coming by holding up THE hot lure of the day that is just slaughtering the bass, but they can't spare one and of course I don't have. The day several fishermen came up recommending a brown Lazy Ike (which I didn't have) several years ago was the day I decided I would have at least one of all. It doesn't hurt if there's room to store a few of all types in the boat. The only confusing part is figuring out where a particular lure is hiding.

Jim

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