Have you noticed river fishing is much better when it's sunny?

[Ohioguy25]

Been fishing a small river in SW Ohio all summer and I finally figured out how to catch them. I realize live bait isn't as respected as artificial but it got my foot in the door and now I've caught the fishing bug.  I started catching crawdads with a small hand net, throwing them on with a hook and sinker and boom! I throw them right where the rapids meet the calm water and on the good days they hit it almost instantly, it's the greatest feeling ever hooking into a smallmouth, man they put up one hell of a fight.  

 

It seems like I've only really had success when the sun is shining. Is there a scientific reason for this? Am I casting in the right area or should I switch it up? Lastly, should I be removing their pinchers or leaving them on? 

[BigSkyBasser]

38 minutes ago, Ohioguy25 said:

 

It seems like I've only really had success when the sun is shining. Is there a scientific reason for this? Am I casting in the right area or should I switch it up? Lastly, should I be removing their pinchers or leaving them on? 

 

Glad you found bass fishing!

 

I think the fish are feeding more actively during high pressure systems in the river you're fishing for some reason. It may have to do with weather consistency more than anything. Have you tried fishing when it's been cloudy/overcast for a couple of days first? If the weather changes, the bite will often slow down for a day or two, then pick back up as long as weather stabilizes, but the smallmouth are probably moving either up or down in the water column and therefore the bite is changing. River smallies generally don't move much from my experience.

 

Also, I too dabble with live crawdads and have caught some excellent smallies doing so. I recently read suggestions that the claws work best when removed, but personally I've always left them on and don't seem to have any issues. Let the fish tell you what they want.

 

Hope this helps!

[everythingthatswims]

I bet they are closer to the bottom on sunny days, looking down in the direction of your craws. Sun probably helps them see stuff being carried down by those rapids too.

 

Cloudy days they are probably being mean smallmouth and marauding.

[Bluebasser86]

14 minutes ago, everythingthatswims said:

I bet they are closer to the bottom on sunny days, looking down in the direction of your craws. Sun probably helps them see stuff being carried down by those rapids too.

 

Cloudy days they are probably being mean smallmouth and marauding.

This would be my guess as well. They're cruising the bottom on sunny days and concentrating in those deeper holes where you're presenting your bait, hence the fast action. Cloudy days allow them to get out and roam around more. You might try drifting a weightless craws around faster moving riffles on cloudy days and see if your luck doesn't change. 

[NYWayfarer]

Ned on sunny days, cranks, flukes and jerkbaits on cloudy days.

[soflabasser]

Last week I was fishing up north and caught muskie,walleye,smallies, and other northern fish in a river. The sky was completely overcast and it rained on almost everyday I was there. The fish are feeding big time up north now, so now is the time to fish hard.

[Spankey]

I spend a lot of time on the river. A nice sunny bluebird sky no wind or breeze is a great day. Can be a very productive day. 

 

But, I'll take a cloudy overcast situation. If it wants to start drizzling or light rain kicks in, I'll take that also. 

 

There are a lot of things the effect river fishing. Have fun. 

[Paul Roberts]

No idea, really. It's tough to decipher fish behavior through fishing; There are just so many variables.

 

I have noticed that stream fish are not as affected by bright sunny days compared to stillwater fish. On brilliant blue sunny days, when I just didn't have the stomach to beat a dead horse on my bass ponds, I'd hit the streams for bass or trout. It's, in large part, the broken water that allowed me to get a lure to the fish without spooking the heck out of them. I've learned a bunch about fishing stillwater under brilliant blue since, but the option still holds. 

[Choporoz]

12 minutes ago, Paul Roberts said:

It's tough to decipher fish behavior through fishing; There are just so many variables.

At once, insightful and deceptively obvious.    Goes a long ways towards explaining why we fish for bass....and the challenges involved

[Paul Roberts]

2 hours ago, Choporoz said:

At once, insightful and deceptively obvious.    Goes a long ways towards explaining why we fish for bass....and the challenges involved

Yeah, it's interesting how the mind works. The job of the brain -the central processing center- is to "make sense" of the world around us. And it's darn good at it, considering how much there is to parse through. But... the brain will also make sense out of precious few data points. ? The human mind has been called a "belief machine", which explains a lot of the really good, and really strange, ideas floating around out there. Added my share of both to the mix.