Coastal Fishing Concepts
Understanding the Seasons
Many times when I write my articles I want to
express the true techniques for inshore angling.
From rigging, boat positioning, lures, rods, reels,
fishing lines, structure and the list goes on and
on. One of the most basic principles in fishing
across the globe is to understand the positioning
and migrational movements of the species that you
are chasing? Each species of fish have a
seasonal migrational movement and many factors
directly relate to some variable. Temperature
of the water, bait movements, fishing pressure,
water salinity, water clarity and structure types
all affect the migration of the fish you are targeting.
During my seminars, charters and TV show I
honestly try to illustrate the importance of understanding the migration of fish with seasonal
changes. Many anglers I encounter feel that fishing
is a “just by chance” situation and fish are
either there or they will pass by sometime during
the day. This is farthest from the truth!
First thing that you must understand is that there are
different seasons through the year that locate fish
geographically. Winter, Pre-Spring, Spring, Summer,
Pre-Fall and Fall are the seasons that I feel work for
the movements of our inshore species along the
northern gulf coast. There are two seasonal periods
that are not the norm when it comes to labeling seasons. Pre-Spring and Pre-Fall are times of the year
that our fish are in transition due to temperatures
rising or falling and bait are moving due to natural
migration urges and sunlight during the day.
Winter is the season that our fish along the
by Capt. Charlie
Thomason
Bayou Charters
(504) 278-FISH
coast become dormant and begin to conserve energy due to the slowing down of internal organs. Remember that fish are cold blooded so this means
that their metabolism is directly related to the temperature of the water they are living.
As water temperatures increase, metabolism of fish
will increase causing fish and bait to move
and feed, but when water temperatures decrease
then metabolism of the fish will decrease and
slow the fish feeding and moving. As we know
weather along the gulf coast fluctuates daily and
fish will move and feed with those fluctuations. High
pressure with fronts will slow the fishing
some but right before a front or during a front fish
will feed aggressively knowing that colder temperatures will slow down feeding. I normally love to fish